The article which I selected for research review is “Neural Correlates of Emotional

Intelligence in Adolescent Children” written by William D. S. Killgore & Deborah A. Yurgelun-

Todd in 2007. This article is explaining the relationship between emotional intelligence and

different brain regions. I chose this article because it is clarifying the role of neural activities in

different brain regions along with the individual differences in developing emotional and social

skills in emotional intelligence.

According to somatic marker hypothesis, decision making is influenced by the

connection between emotionally suggestive events and the emotional reaction that occurred

because of these occasions. These emotional reactions are on very basic level physical states that

are reenergized when one meets a biologically relevant situation that is like one experienced

beforehand. The initiation of these somatic markers creates an enthusiastic predisposition that

helps in making decisions when conditions are uncertain or when there are such a large number

of choices to analyze. In such circumstances, somatic markers help in making decisions by

biasing decision choices from choices that bring out negative physical states and toward

decisions that bring out positive somatic states. Inside this structure, an individual with high

emotional intelligence might be perceived as one who is compelling at using these physical

emotional signs to appropriately and beneficially direct decision making and social conduct

(Damasio, 1994).

There are individual difference found in the social and emotional capacities that are

critical to managing interpersonal relations and adapting effectively to ecological needs and

pressing factors, the particular way wherein the somatic marker is associated with these skills is

still not known. Numerous investigations of learning and development propose that neural action

turns out to be more proficient and engaged as people obtain more prominent abilities and
experience, a process that establish the foundation of the neural efficiency hypothesis. A study

conducted by Olson and associates (Olson et al., 2006) found that as execution on a grouping

learning task improved, there were relating diminishes in cerebral blood stream inside areas of

the mind significant for task completion, recommending that the cerebrum required less action

(i.e., created more prominent neural effectiveness) to perform the task at a similar degree of

accuracy. Essentially, people who showed the great improvement for a learned task also showed

the best decreases in local cerebral glucose metabolic process during performing the task,

proposing increased neural effectiveness (Haier, Siegel, et al., 1992).

The study was conducted by using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to

check the relationship between emotional quotient and brain activities of 16 healthy adolescents

while perceiving fearful faces (Baird et al., 1999; Killgore & Yurgelun-Todd, 2001). The results

showed a negative relationship between Emotional Quotient (EQ) & somatic marker activity and

a positive correlation between Emotional Intelligence & activity in visual association cortex and

cerebellum.

These results concluded that EQ in children may include more neural efficiency of these

emotional structures. So they may be responsible for low reactivity in reaction to emotional

aggravation within the somatic marker by mediating the incorporation of somatic circuits and

cognition during the process of decision making.

References

Baird, A. A., Gruber, S. A., Fein, D. A., Maas, L. C., Steingard, R. J., Renshaw, P. F., et al.

(1999). Functional magnetic resonance imaging of facial affect recognition in

children and adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent

Psychiatry, 38, 195-199.

Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York:

Grosset/Putnam.

Haier, R. J., Siegel, B. V., MacLachlan, A., Soderling, E., Lottenberg, S., & Buchsbaum, M. S.

(1992). Regional glucose metabolic changes after learning a complex

visuospatial/motor task: A positron emission tomographic study. Brain Research,

570, 134-143.

Killgore, W. D. S., & Yurgelun-Todd, D. A. (2001). Sex differences in amygdala activation

during the perception of facial affect. Neuro- Report, 12, 2543-2547.

Olson, I. R., Rao, H., Moore, K. S., Wang, J., Detre, J. A., & Aguirre, G. K. (2006). Using

perfusion fMRI to measure continuous changes in neural activity with learning.

Brain & Cognition, 60, 262-271.

Killgore, W. D. S. & Yurgelan-Todd, D. A. (2007). Neural correlates of emotional intelligence in

adolescent children. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 7 (2), 140-

151.