Data from: Dissecting abstract, modality-specific and experience-dependent coding of affect in the human brain

Emotion and perception are tightly intertwined, as affective experiences
often arise from the appraisal of sensory information. Nonetheless,
whether the brain encodes emotional instances using a sensory-specific
code or in a more abstract manner is unclear. Here, we answer this
question by measuring the association between emotion ratings collected
during a unisensory or multisensory presentation of a full-length movie
and brain activity recorded in typically-developed, congenitally blind and
congenitally deaf participants. Emotional instances are encoded in a vast
network encompassing sensory, prefrontal, and temporal cortices. Within
this network, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex stores a categorical
representation of emotion independent of modality and previous sensory
experience, and the posterior superior temporal cortex maps the valence
dimension using an abstract code. Sensory experience more than modality
impacts how the brain organizes emotional information outside supramodal
regions, suggesting the existence of a scaffold for the representation of
emotional states where sensory inputs during development shape its
functioning.