# Causal mapping of emotion networks with concurrent electrical stimulation and fMRI

> **NIH NIH U01** · CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2020 · $959,694

## Abstract

Understanding human brain function requires knowledge of its connectivity: how one structure
causally influences other components of the network. A wide range of neurological and
psychiatric disorders prominently involve dysfunction of connectivity, including
neurodegenerative diseases, autism, and mood disorders. Yet current methods provide only
indirect measures of connectivity, and none can directly test how one brain structure causally
influences another at the level of the whole brain. A unique opportunity to obtain such
measures in the human brain comes from using experimental manipulation of activation through
direct electrical stimulation, coupled with the whole-brain field-of-view of fMRI (es-fMRI). Our
group has obtained IRB approval, and obtained strong initial data of concurrent es-fMRI in a
series of 20 neurosurgical patients over the past two years. Here we intend to leverage this
unique approach to the application of important open research questions in emotion, and to
dissemination of protocols to a wider community of possible performance sites through this U01
mechanism.
 Three Aims progress through initial validation and quantification of the approach,
mapping of brain networks involved in emotion processing (with a focus on the amygdala and
medial prefrontal cortex), and convergent measures with ECoG and rs-fMRI. These Aims offer
a mix of immediate implementation based on strong pilot data, more exploratory implementation
during the grant, strong validation components, and future planning.
 The research focus of all Aims is on how emotion is caused by activity in brain networks.
This is the topic with the strongest link to readily accessible brain structures for electrical
stimulation in neurosurgical epilepsy patients (amygdala and prefrontal cortex). The work would
have immediate implications for deep brain stimulation to treat diseases like depression, and
long-term implications for eventually mapping out the effective functional connectome of the
human brain. We will aim to provide the research community with short, feasible protocols that
could be adopted by many other sites in a concerted effort to map effective connectivity in the
human brain, eventually accumulating a database for understanding how individual differences
in emotion, in health and disease, arise from differences in network connectivity.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9830084
- **Project number:** 5U01NS103780-03
- **Recipient organization:** CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** RALPH ADOLPHS
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $959,694
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-12-15 → 2021-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9830084

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9830084, Causal mapping of emotion networks with concurrent electrical stimulation and fMRI (5U01NS103780-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9830084. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*