{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,2]],"date-time":"2026-02-02T05:37:04Z","timestamp":1770010624765,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,30]],"date-time":"2022-03-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1648598400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Behav. Neurosci."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Background<\/jats:title><jats:p>We here report two cases of stimulation induced pathological laughter (PL) under thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) for essential tremor and interpret the effects based on a modified neuroanatomy of positive affect display (PAD).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Objective\/Hypothesis<\/jats:title><jats:p>The hitherto existing neuroanatomy of PAD can be augmented with recently described parts of the motor medial forebrain bundle (motorMFB). We speculate that a co-stimulation of parts of this fiber structure might lead to a non-volitional modulation of PAD resulting in PL.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>We describe the clinical and individual imaging workup and combine the interpretation with normative diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-tractography descriptions of motor connections of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) (<jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic> = 200 subjects, HCP cohort), [[<jats:sup>18<\/jats:sup>F] fluorodeoxyglucose (<jats:sup>18<\/jats:sup>FDG)] positron emission tomography (PET), and volume of activated tissue simulations. We integrate these results with literature concerning PAD and the neuroanatomy of smiling and laughing.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>DBS electrodes bilaterally co-localized with the MB-pathway (\u201climiter pathway\u201d). The FDG PET activation pattern allowed to explain pathological PAD. A conceptual revised neuroanatomy of PAD is described.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title><jats:p>Eliciting pathological PAD through chronic thalamic DBS is a new finding and has previously not been reported. PAD is evolution driven, hard wired to the brain and realized over previously described branches of the motorMFB. A major relay region is the VTA\/mammillary body complex. PAD physiologically undergoes conscious modulation mainly <jats:italic>via<\/jats:italic> the MB branch of the motorMFB (limiter). This limiter in our cases is bilaterally disturbed through DBS. The here described anatomy adds to a previously described framework of neuroanatomy of laughter and humor.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fnbeh.2022.817554","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,31]],"date-time":"2022-03-31T00:17:48Z","timestamp":1648685868000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["A Neuroanatomy of Positive Affect Display \u2013 Subcortical Fiber Pathways Relevant for Initiation and Modulation of Smiling and Laughing"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Volker A.","family":"Coenen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Bastian E. 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