Regulation of Human Affective Responses by Anterior Cingulate and Limbic µ-Opioid Neurotransmission

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Abstract
ADVANCES IN functional neuroimaging have made possible the identification of brain areas mediating the experience of emotions directly in human subjects, which complements data acquired in animal models and in neurological disorders. A distributed network of regions, both cortical (eg, prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, insular cortex) and subcortical (eg, amygdala, thalamus, ventral striatum), increase their synaptic activity during the presentation of emotional stimuli or the experience of emotional states.1-8 Functional and structural changes in some of these regions have also been implicated in the pathophysiology of mood disorders (eg, major depression).9-12