Neural Mechanisms of Emotion-behaviour Interactions (EMOBB)

Neural and Cognitive Mechanism of Adaptive and Maladaptive Interplay Between Emotions in Behaviour in Naturalistic Tasks

Deciding what to do when for how long - self-organizing one's behaviour - is an important feature of daily life. Emotions arise providing short-cuts for the computational complexities. Yet, one still knows relatively little about the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms. EMOBB will establish the computational, cognitive and neural underpinnings of the rich interplay between emotions and self-organized behaviour in naturalistic environments. Previous work has almost exclusively relied on tasks structured into experimenter determined trials - thus how people self-organized behaviour could not be measured. To overcome this, EMOBB will combine novel naturalistic tasks in which people have freedom what to do when for how long with subjective and objective measurements of emotions. This will be made possible through a computational modelling approach that allows dissecting and quantifying even complex behaviour-emotion interactions.

Specifically, EMOBB will use three cognitive tasks of emotion-behaviour interplay that participants will do while undergoing functional magnetic resonance brain imaging and monitoring of their facial expressions with an MRI-compatible camera.

The primary hypothesis of EMOBB is that both unique and shared neural networks will underpin the interplay between emotions and behaviour across our cognitive tasks.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Healthy Volunteer
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 120
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Jacqueline SCHOLL, PhD; Phone Number: 4 81 10 65 00 + 33; Email: jacqueline.scholl@inserm.fr

Study Locations

• France
  • Bron, France, 69500
    • CERMEP (Centre d'Etude de Recherche Multimodal et pluridisciplinaire en imagerie du vivant)
    • Contact: Jacqueline SCHOLL, PhD; Phone Number: + 33 4 81 10 65 00; Email: jacqueline.scholl@inserm.fr
    • Principal Investigator: Jacqueline SCHOLL, PhD

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 18-45 years old,
• fluent French speakers,
• healthy,
• without a beard at the time of testing,
• right-handed,
• being able to use both hands
• BMI between 18.5 and 30
• give written informed consen
• for women: contraception;

Exclusion Criteria:

• neurological, psychiatric disorders, or severe chronic disorders (diabetes, cardiac, kidney, lung, liver disorders, inflammatory disorders)
• pregnancy or breast-feeding
• under guardianship, currently admitted to a psychiatric hospital other than for research purposes)
• not wanting to be informed of abnormalities detected during MRI scan,
• taking part in other studies with exclusion periods,
• MRI exclusion criteria (cardiac pace maker etc, vascular or intracranial clamps or stents, neurological stimulator, any other metal in the body, past accidents with metal to the eyes, metallic prostheses, metal in the mouth (braces, retainers), medication pumps, any implants (e.g. hearing implants), piercings that cannot be removed, having worked with metal (other than radiography related to MRI) being claustrophobic, tatoos above the shoulders.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Task 1: self-organization under threat	Other: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI); Participants will perform a cognitive task (responses through button presses) while we measure brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and record their facial expressions.
Experimental: Task 2: self-organization and learning	Other: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI); Participants will perform a cognitive task (responses through button presses) while we measure brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and record their facial expressions.
Experimental: Task 3 : self-organization and social context	Other: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI); Participants will perform a cognitive task (responses through button presses) while we measure brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and record their facial expressions.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Brain activity in regions of interest	Brain activity is captured as percentage change in blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal with FMRI compared to baseline across tasks across brain regions (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, vmPFC; dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dACC).	Day 0

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Brain activity during task 1 (Self-organization under threat)	Brain activity is captured as percentage change in blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal with FMRI compared to rest in task 1 across brain regions (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, vmPFC; dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dACC).	Day 0
Brain activity during task 2 (Self-organization and learning)	Brain activity is captured as percentage change in blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) compared to rest in task 2 across brain regions (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, vmPFC; dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dACC).	Day 0
Brain activity during task 3 (Self-organization and social context)	Brain activity is captured as percentage change in blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal with FMRI compared to rest in task 3 across brain regions (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, vmPFC; dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dACC).	Day 0

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Hospices Civils de Lyon
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jacqueline SCHOLL, PhD, Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): October 1, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): October 1, 2030
• Study Completion (Estimated): October 10, 2030

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 20, 2026
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 28, 2026
• First Posted (Actual): June 3, 2026

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): June 3, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 28, 2026
• Last Verified: May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Cognition; Emotions; FMRI
• Other Study ID Numbers: 69HCL25_1123; 2025-A02658-41 (Other Identifier: ID-RCB)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No