Brain signatures of catastrophic events: Emotion, salience, and cognitive control

Laura Mas‐Cuesta; Baltruschat, Sabina; Cándido, Antonio; Catena, Andrés · 2024 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14674

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Summary

This study investigates the neural mechanisms underlying the anticipation and processing of statistically unpredictable, catastrophic events, specifically traffic accidents. While the human brain is optimized to predict future events based on environmental cues, accidents are rare and lack regularity, creating a gap in understanding how the brain handles such unexpected, high-consequence situations. The research aims to identify brain activity markers and effective connectivity patterns during the peri-accident period in a simulated driving context, with implications for human-machine integration and driver state monitoring. The researchers recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) activity from 161 healthy participants using a motorcycle simulator. Of these, 90 participants experienced at least one accident, allowing for within-subject comparisons between accident and baseline (safe) periods, as well as between-subject comparisons with 64 participants who did not experience accidents. Data processing involved source localization using sLORETA and effective connectivity analysis using multivariate Granger causality across seven brain networks defined by the Brainnetome Atlas. The analysis focused on pre-accident (anticipatory) and post-accident (processing) periods relative to the event triggers. Results indicated distinct neural signatures for accident anticipation and processing. During the pre-accident period, the accident condition showed higher activity in the right inferior parietal lobe (IPL), left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and right insula compared to baseline. Effective connectivity analysis revealed increased causal flow within the limbic network (LN) and between nodes of attentional networks, suggesting heightened salience detection and emotional processing prior to the crash. In the post-accident period, activity increased in the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, right IPL, bilateral ACC, and frontal gyri. Connectivity patterns shifted to include greater integration between networks, specifically from the ventral attention network (VAN) to the somatomotor network, and from visual, VAN, and default mode network nodes to frontoparietal and limbic nodes. The findings suggest that even for statistically unpredictable events, the brain activates salience-related and emotional processing regions to anticipate potential danger. Following an accident, the brain engages in integrating new information and initiating control processes to adapt behavior to the changed environment. This study provides evidence that anticipatory brain activity exists for catastrophic events, highlighting the role of specific brain networks in monitoring uncertainty and managing the cognitive demands of unexpected, high-stakes situations.

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• anticipation