Fast route versus slow route: Electrophysiological and behavioural evidences of emotional processing pathways

Abstract

Research in the area of neurocognitive processing of emotions, indicates the possibility of two segregated pathways in the brain. These correspond to a slow pathway (sensory-thalamic-cortical) and a fast pathway (sensory-thalamic limbic). In the latter, the role of the amygdala would be dominant. This research seeks to assess how it influences the emotional context in the processing of emotional stimuli, specifically to test how these pathways interact with parallel processing, using electrophysiological techniques and recording behaviour in a recognition task of inconsistencies. These results allow us to support the hypothesis of segregated pathways influencing each other to develop a contextualised response. We conclude that, regarding emotions, these guide decision-making and are associated with external events. Given a situation, there is a certain bodily response that contributes to the assessment of a situation, and they are also part of the cognitive process and form the physiological substrate of feelings.