Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
1. ULUSAL NÖROGÖRÜNTÜLEME KONGRESİ , Ankara, Türkiye, 7 - 09 Eylül 2023
Objectives: Negative emotions affect our perception of time. It was shown that we tend to perceive durations longer than it actually is if there is a stimulus that elicits negative emotions. This study aims to illuminate how stress distorts our perception of time and which neural pathways are involved. Methods: Healthy, right-handed volunteers (N=22, 8 Female, Age=24 ± 3.34y) were scanned in the MRI while performing a time reproduction task and a space reproduction task as a control condition. Session included two stressful and two notstressful runs. Participants were given negative feedback during the stressful runs. Cortisol samples were collected at 5 different time points throughout the session. Participants were divided into two groups as high and low-stressed by the median of the cortisol increase rate. Images were analyzed via SPM12 on MATLAB. A 2 (high/low-stressed groups) by 2 (time/space task) x 2 (stressed/not-stressed runs) ANOVA was conducted. Significance level was p<0.005. Results: Three-way interaction results (group-task-stress) were significant in the left orbitofrontal cortex(F=16.80, p<0.001) and left insula (F=15.01, p<0.001). Left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (F=19.99, p<0.001), left medial temporal gyrus (F=18.69, p<0.001), left supplementary motor area (SMA) (F=17.26, p<0.001), and left inferior parietal cortex (F=16.70, p<0.001) was significant for the stress-task interaction. Left-SMA was also found significant for the group-task interaction (F=16.22, p<0.001). Conclusion: The three-way interaction findings of the study (insula and orbitofrontal cortex), are consistently activated in both time perception and stress tasks. SMA is known as one of the crucial regions for time perception and it was activated with a frontoparietal network in the stress-task and group-task interaction. It was suggested that the frontoparietal cortex is responsible for higher cognitive processes related to time perception. Based on these findings, it can be argued that the stress-time interaction of these regions is differentiating between high and low-stressed individuals.