Mood Swing: How feelings help and hurt

When it comes to higher mental abilities, man does not govern by
logical thought alone. Instead, research suggests that moods help
regulate specific tasks performed by the lateral prefrontal cortex, the
part of the brain critical to reasoning and intelligence.

"The brain is organized to process emotions along with logic,"
states Richard Restak, M.D., a psychiatrist and professor of neurology at
George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Restak's book
Mozart's Brainand the
Fighter Pilotprovides 28 tips on strengthening
mental acuity and, when necessary, turning emotion to one's
advantage.

A new study, conducted at Washington University (WU) in St. Louis,
shows more specifically how emotions and learning interact. Subjects
viewed pleasant, neutral or anxiety-inducing video clips, then performed
cognitive tasks while their brain activity was monitored by functional
magnetic resonance imaging. The results, published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
suggest that emotional states such as enjoyment and anticipation augment
tasks executed by the left prefrontal cortex, while negative emotions,
including fear and anxiety, enhance tasks processed by the right
prefontal cortex.

"This is the first study to show that specific brain regions
mediate interactions between emotional states and cognition," says Todd
Braver, Ph.D., a WU psychology professor. Co-author Jeremy Gray, Ph.D., a
postdoctoral researcher at WU, agrees. "It's not simply that emotion
'hijacks' cognition but that emotions both enhance and impair higher
cognition in very specific ways," Gray explains. "To understand how a
particular emotion influences performance, you have to take into account
the type of task in question. Our results show that the brain takes this
into account."

Because anxiety enhances visual and spatial performance, subjects
who viewed a clip from the horror film
Halloweenscored 25 percent better on tests of face
recognition (regulated by the right hemisphere), than did subjects who
watched comedies. Viewing comedies, however, led to a 25 percent
improvement in verbal performance.

Susceptibility to positive or negative moods can also impact tasks
regulated by the lateral prefrontal cortex, according to the study. Those
results will be published in
Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral
Neuroscience.

Even though emotion enhances certain types of learning, Restak
subscribes to the precept of "mental hygiene," or keeping one's emotions
in check. "Don't pay too much attention to your feelings," he advises.
"If I only wrote when I felt like it, I'd have two books written." Restak
has in fact penned 13.