Insular atrophy and diminished disgust reactivity.

Disgust is an emotion that helps us deal with potential contamination (Rozin & Fallon, 1987). It produces a distinctive facial expression (e.g.

Impaired Recognition and Regulation of Disgust Is Associated with Distinct but Partially Overlapping Patterns of Decreased Gray Matter Volume in the Ventroanterior Insula.

Background: The ventroanterior insula is implicated in the experience, expression, and recognition of disgust; however, whether this brain region is required for recognizing disgust or regulating disgusting behaviors remains unknown.

Methods: We examined the brain correlates of the presence of disgusting behavior and impaired recognition of disgust using voxel-based morphometry in a sample of 305 patients with heterogeneous patterns of neurodegeneration. Permutation-based analyses were used to determine regions of decreased gray matter volume at a significance level p <= .

Damage to left frontal regulatory circuits produces greater positive emotional reactivity in frontotemporal dementia.

Positive emotions foster social relationships and motivate thought and action. Dysregulation of positive emotion may give rise to debilitating clinical symptomatology such as mania, risk-taking, and disinhibition. Neuroanatomically, there is extensive evidence that the left hemisphere of the brain, and the left frontal lobe in particular, plays an important role in positive emotion generation.

Diminished disgust reactivity in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia.

Frontotemporal dementia is a neurodegenerative disease that impacts emotion and social behavior. Using laboratory measures of emotional reactivity, our past work has found that reactivity to loud noises and to thematically simple happy and sad emotional films are preserved in the early stages of the disease while other emotional responses (e.g.

Four therapeutic diets: adherence and acceptability.

Many health conditions are treated, at least in part, by therapeutic diets. Although the success of any intervention depends on its acceptability to the patient, the acceptability of therapeutic diets and factors that influence it have been largely neglected in nutrition research. A working definition of acceptability is proposed and an examination and summary are provided of available data on the acceptability of common diet regimens used for medical conditions.