Physiological Network of Emotion

Previous studies have shown that emotions elicit responses in various physiological systems that underlie emotional experience. However, these studies have focused almost solely on how emotions alter the activity of individual physiological systems. Moreover, recent research has highlighted that the human organism is an integrated entity, wherein physiological systems constantly interact to form a dynamic network. Therefore, in this study, we attempted to evaluate whether the physiological network changes with different emotions. We employed multivariate transfer entropy to assess the interaction between six types of emotion-related physiological signals and subsequently constructed physiological networks across forty emotional trials. Additionally, topological parameters were applied to each physiological network to quantify its overall structure. The results revealed that emotion has a significant impact on the topology of physiological networks, indicating the integrated behavior of physiological systems in response to emotion at the macro-scale level. Furthermore, different physiological systems may play diverse roles within the physiological network. In summary, we propose a system-level integrative approach, referred to as the physiological network, to study the physiological responses to emotion. This not only contributes to a deeper understanding of emotional mechanisms but also demonstrates potential for disease research and engineering applications.