Changes in subjective experience elicited by direct stimulation of the human orbitofrontal cortex
Neurology September 19, 2018 K. Fox, Jennifer Yih, Omri Raccah et al.
Electrical stimulation of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in 22 neurosurgical patients with epilepsy produced a range of subjective experiences, mostly neutral or negative (aversive smells, tastes, sadness, anger). Negatively valenced experiences were more common with left-hemisphere stimulation, while neutral effects were strongly right-lateralized. Most elicited effects came from stimulation around the transverse orbital sulcus, with no effects from the most anterior OFC. The findings suggest a dissociation between a silent anterior OFC and a responsive middle/posterior OFC, and support a causal role for the OFC in integrating affect with multimodal sensory experience.