Why do we feel that way: Elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying emotion perception and enhancing the noninvasive brain stimulation intervention

Our feelings about something can change over time and can vary in different contexts. This happens because our awareness of our emotions can be separate from the actual feeling itself. Our brain plays a big role in how we interpret and understand our own emotions—something the scientists call “emotion perception”—and this can be influenced by our life experiences, culture, and even modern noninvasive brain stimulation techniques.This project aims to investigate how our brain processes and understands emotions. These findings will then help us to develop noninvasive technique that can change how our brain perceive emotions, and even adjust any biases we may have in how we understand them. To do this, researchers will use electroencephalogram (EEG) recording to record brainwave activity, and decode these moment-to-moment neural transmissions between multiple brain areas when it comes to processing emotions. This information will then be used to develop personalized protocols for noninvasive brain stimulation.The researchers believe that by studying the EEG signals and understanding the brain’s interactions during emotion processing, they can find ways to reduce biases in how we understand emotions and improve mental health as a result.