Event Abstract Back to Event Fast access to "hate" and "love": rapid neural responses to emotional categories during word processing Kati Keuper1*, Marisa Nordt1, Peter Zwanzger2 and Christian Dobel1 1 Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University of Münster, Germany 2 Department of Psychiatry, University of Münster, Germany Neuroscientific and behavioral studies investigating emotional word processing reveal selective and prioritized processing of emotional words (Kissler et al., 2009). Arousal-dependent ERP modulations have been observed as early as the P1 time window (e.g. Ortigue et al., 2004) suggesting the apparent paradox that some linguistic features might be processed before (or in parallel with) their lexical distinction. However, the detailed neural correlates of such early processes are still unknown. The present study intended to explore arousal- and valence-related neural networks by means of a simultaneous MEG-EEG measurement in which subjects were required to silently read streams of positive, negative, and neutral words. Neural sources within the P1 time window (80-120ms) were identified by means of current density reconstruction (L2 minimum norm) based on individualized boundary element models and a cortical constraint. The data reveal an enhanced activation for emotional compared to neutral words in left temporal regions. Furthermore, we observed left-temporal and parietal regions to be more strongly activated in response to positive words compared to negative words, whereas negative words resulted in enhanced activation of right parietal and left anterior cingulate cortex regions. These findings demonstrate that not only arousal- but also valence related aspects of words are encoded by complex cortical networks as early as 100 ms. This corroborates that emotional items receive preferential processing. Overall, these results are compatible with the observation that a range of psycholinguistic processes, up to the level of semantic access, emerge already 100-250 ms after word presentation (Pulvermüller et al., 2009). Funding: Supported by IZKF (Do3/021/10). Keywords: EEG, Language Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Neural Bases of Language Citation: Keuper K, Nordt M, Zwanzger P and Dobel C (2011). Fast access to "hate" and "love": rapid neural responses to emotional categories during word processing. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00203 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Kati Keuper, Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University of Münster, Münster, Germany, k.roesmann@uni-muenster.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Kati Keuper Marisa Nordt Peter Zwanzger Christian Dobel Google Kati Keuper Marisa Nordt Peter Zwanzger Christian Dobel Google Scholar Kati Keuper Marisa Nordt Peter Zwanzger Christian Dobel PubMed Kati Keuper Marisa Nordt Peter Zwanzger Christian Dobel Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.