Emotion: Neural substrates of emotion as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Entrez PubMed: "OBJECTIVES: To examine the brain circuitry involved in emotional experience and determine whether the cerebral hemispheres are specialized for positive and negative emotional experience. BACKGROUND: Recent research has provided a preliminary sketch of the neurologic underpinnings of emotional processing involving specialized contributions of limbic and cortical brain regions. Electrophysiologic, functional imaging, and Wada test data have suggested positive, approach-related emotions are associated with left cerebral hemisphere regions, whereas negative, withdrawal-related emotions appear to be more aligned with right hemisphere mechanisms. . . RESULTS: Emotional pictures resulted in significantly increased blood flow bilaterally in the mesial frontal lobe/anterior cingulate gyrus, dorsolateral frontal lobe, amygdala/anterior temporal regions, and cerebellum. Negative emotional pictures resulted in greater activation of the right hemisphere, and positive pictures caused greater activation of the left hemisphere. CONCLUSIONS: Results are consistent with theories emphasizing the importance of circuitry linking subcortical structures with mesial temporal, anterior cingulate, and frontal lobe regions in emotion and with the valence model of emotion that posits lateralized cerebral specialization for positive and negative emotional experience."

Neural substrates of emotion as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Lee GP, Meador KJ, Loring DW, Allison JD, Brown WS, Paul LK, Pillai JJ, Lavin TB.
Cogn Behav Neurol. 2004 Mar;17(1):9-17.