Emotion, Motivation and Cognition (EMOTIV)
Emotions refer to rewarding or aversive states induced by various stimuli (food, social interactions, drugs of abuse), which are related to brain circuits (reward and stress systems) and guide adaptive responses to the environment. While organizing behavior and promoting resilience in some subjects, emotional states can evolve into pathological states such as anxiety, depression or addiction. Our project relies on “mirrored” approaches aiming first at understanding neural dynamics of valence (either rewarding or aversive) and value of emotions, the "shift” which occurs with chronicity, internal (bodily) vs external context changes, and level (or loss) of control. The adaptative function of emotions also relies on attentional and cognitive processes such as learning strategies which vary individually. We thus investigate the influence of individual cognitive traits (“personality”) on behavioral and neural responses to emotional stimuli and stress.
