Intensity of affective experience is modulated by magnitude of intracranial electrical stimulation in human orbitofrontal, cingulate and insular cortices
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The subjective and behavioral effects of intracranial electrical stimulation (iES) have been studied for decades, but there is a knowledge gap regarding the relationship between the magnitude of electric current and the type, intensity and valence of evoked subjective experiences. We report on rare iES data from 18 neurosurgical patients with implanted intracranial electrodes in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the insula (INS) and the anterior portion of cingulate cortex (ACC). ACC stimulation elicited somatic and visceral sensations, whereas OFC stimulation predominantly elicited olfactory and gustatory responses, and INS stimulation elicited a mix of effects involving somatic and visceral sensations, olfaction and gustation. Further, we found striking evidence that the magnitude of electric current delivered intracranially correlated positively with the perceived intensity of subjective experience and the evoked emotional state, a relationship observed across all three regions. Finally, we observed that the majority of reported experiences were negatively valenced and unpleasant, especially those elicited by ACC stimulation. The present study provides novel case studies from the human brain confirming that these structures contribute causally to the creation of affective states and demonstrates a direct relationship between the magnitude of electrical stimulation of these structures and the qualia of elicited subjective experience. Summary: This study provides critical knowledge about the effect of electrical charge magnitude on the intensity of human subjective experiences and emotional states. We shed light on the fundamental relationship between the electrical (physical) state of cortical tissue and the modality and intensity of human (subjective) experience. As electroceutical interventions are increasingly employed to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders, these findings highlight the importance of electrical stimulation magnitude for eliciting specific changes in human subjective experience.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".