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Taubert J, Wardle SG, Patterson A, Baker CI. Beyond faces: the contribution of the amygdala to visual processing in the macaque brain. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhae245. [PMID: 38864574 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae245] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2024] [Revised: 05/03/2024] [Accepted: 05/25/2024] [Indexed: 06/13/2024] Open
Abstract
The amygdala is present in a diverse range of vertebrate species, such as lizards, rodents, and primates; however, its structure and connectivity differs across species. The increased connections to visual sensory areas in primate species suggests that understanding the visual selectivity of the amygdala in detail is critical to revealing the principles underlying its function in primate cognition. Therefore, we designed a high-resolution, contrast-agent enhanced, event-related fMRI experiment, and scanned 3 adult rhesus macaques, while they viewed 96 naturalistic stimuli. Half of these stimuli were social (defined by the presence of a conspecific), the other half were nonsocial. We also nested manipulations of emotional valence (positive, neutral, and negative) and visual category (faces, nonfaces, animate, and inanimate) within the stimulus set. The results reveal widespread effects of emotional valence, with the amygdala responding more on average to inanimate objects and animals than faces, bodies, or social agents in this experimental context. These findings suggest that the amygdala makes a contribution to primate vision that goes beyond an auxiliary role in face or social perception. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of stimulus selection and experimental design when probing the function of the amygdala and other visually responsive brain regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica Taubert
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, 10 Center Dr, Bethesda, MD 20892 USA
- School of Psychology, Level 3, McElwain Building (24A), The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
| | - Susan G Wardle
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, 10 Center Dr, Bethesda, MD 20892 USA
| | - Amanda Patterson
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, 10 Center Dr, Bethesda, MD 20892 USA
| | - Chris I Baker
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, 10 Center Dr, Bethesda, MD 20892 USA
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2
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Wei Z, Chen Y, Zhao Q, Ren J, Piao Y, Zhang P, Zha R, Qiu B, Zhang D, Bi Y, Han S, Li C, Zhang X. Separable amygdala activation patterns in the evaluations of robots. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhae011. [PMID: 38383721 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2023] [Revised: 12/27/2023] [Accepted: 12/29/2023] [Indexed: 02/23/2024] Open
Abstract
Given the increasing presence of robots in everyday environments and the significant challenge posed by social interactions with robots, it is crucial to gain a deeper understanding into the social evaluations of robots. One potentially effective approach to comprehend the fundamental processes underlying controlled and automatic evaluations of robots is to probe brain response to different perception levels of robot-related stimuli. Here, we investigate controlled and automatic evaluations of robots based on brain responses during viewing of suprathreshold (duration: 200 ms) and subthreshold (duration: 17 ms) humanoid robot stimuli. Our behavioral analysis revealed that despite participants' self-reported positive attitudes, they held negative implicit attitudes toward humanoid robots. Neuroimaging analysis indicated that subthreshold presentation of humanoid robot stimuli elicited significant activation in the left amygdala, which was associated with negative implicit attitudes. Conversely, no significant left amygdala activation was observed during suprathreshold presentation. Following successful attenuation of negative attitudes, the left amygdala response to subthreshold presentation of humanoid robot stimuli decreased, and this decrease correlated positively with the reduction in negative attitudes. These findings provide evidence for separable patterns of amygdala activation between controlled and automatic processing of robots, suggesting that controlled evaluations may influence automatic evaluations of robots.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhengde Wei
- Department of Psychology, School of Humanities & Social Science, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
- Key Laboratory of Brain-Machine Intelligence for Information Behavior-Ministry of Education, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai 201620, China
| | - Ying Chen
- Department of Psychology, School of Humanities & Social Science, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
| | - Qian Zhao
- School of Life Science, Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
| | - Jiecheng Ren
- School of Life Science, Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
| | - Yi Piao
- Institute of Health and Medicine, Hefei Comprehensive Science Center, Hefei, 230071, China
| | - Pengyu Zhang
- School of Life Science, Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
| | - Rujing Zha
- Department of Psychology, School of Humanities & Social Science, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
| | - Bensheng Qiu
- Centers for Biomedical Engineering, School of Information Science and Technology, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027, China
| | - Daren Zhang
- Department of Psychology, School of Humanities & Social Science, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
- School of Life Science, Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
| | - Yanchao Bi
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Shihui Han
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, 100091, China
| | - Chunbo Li
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Xiaochu Zhang
- Department of Psychology, School of Humanities & Social Science, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
- Key Laboratory of Brain-Machine Intelligence for Information Behavior-Ministry of Education, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai 201620, China
- Institute of Health and Medicine, Hefei Comprehensive Science Center, Hefei, 230071, China
- School of Mental Health, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu, Anhui 233030, China
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3
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Adamczyk AK, Wyczesany M, Roelofs K, van Peer JM. Reappraisal is less effective than distraction in downregulation of neural responses to physical threats-An event-related potential investigation. Psychophysiology 2023; 60:e14316. [PMID: 37162260 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14316] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2022] [Revised: 04/04/2023] [Accepted: 04/06/2023] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
Evolutionary threats (ETs), such as predatory animals and heights, elicit stronger fear responses and are more often the subject of specific phobias, as compared to modern threats (MTs, such as guns and motorcycles). Since processing of ET depends on lower-order, phylogenetically conserved neural fear circuits, it may be less susceptible to higher-order (vs. simpler) cognitive emotion regulation. Given the relevance for treatment of specific phobias, we tested this hypothesis in an ERP study. Sixty-one female participants passively watched high- and low-threat pictures of evolutionary (snakes, lizards) and modern (guns, water-guns) origin, and downregulated responses to the high-threat pictures (snakes and guns) using either cognitive reappraisal or a simpler cognitive distraction strategy. ET elicited stronger early (EPN) and sustained (LPP) attention processing compared to MT. Both strategies successfully downregulated subjective and LPP (but not EPN) responses compared to passive watching. Although reappraisal was more effective subjectively, distraction downregulated the LPP earlier and stronger than reappraisal, irrespective of the threat type. These findings provide novel evidence that neural responses to physical threat might be less susceptible to cognitive emotion regulation via higher-order (reappraisal) versus simpler (distraction) strategies, irrespective of the evolutionary or modern relevance of threat. Combining both strategies could be beneficial for the emotion regulation-enhancing interventions for specific phobias. Distraction could be used during initial exposure, to reduce immediate emotion responding and help endure the contact with the feared stimulus, whereas reappraisal could be used subsequently, when emotions are less intense, to change maladaptive thoughts about the stimulus for future encounters.
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Affiliation(s)
- Agnieszka K Adamczyk
- Experimental Psychopathology and Treatment, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
| | - Miroslaw Wyczesany
- Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
| | - Karin Roelofs
- Experimental Psychopathology and Treatment, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Affective Neuroscience, Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Jacobien M van Peer
- Experimental Psychopathology and Treatment, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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4
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Pulvinar Response Profiles and Connectivity Patterns to Object Domains. J Neurosci 2023; 43:812-826. [PMID: 36596697 PMCID: PMC9899088 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0613-22.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2022] [Revised: 11/30/2022] [Accepted: 12/10/2022] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Distributed cortical regions show differential responses to visual objects belonging to different domains varying by animacy (e.g., animals vs tools), yet it remains unclear whether this is an organization principle also applying to the subcortical structures. Combining multiple fMRI activation experiments (two main experiments and six validation datasets; 12 females and 9 males in the main Experiment 1; 10 females and 10 males in the main Experiment 2), resting-state functional connectivity, and task-based dynamic causal modeling analysis in human subjects, we found that visual processing of images of animals and tools elicited different patterns of response in the pulvinar, with robust left lateralization for tools, and distinct, bilateral (with rightward tendency) clusters for animals. Such domain-preferring activity distribution in the pulvinar was associated with the magnitude with which the voxels were intrinsically connected with the corresponding domain-preferring regions in the cortex. The pulvinar-to-right-amygdala path showed a one-way shortcut supporting the perception of animals, and the modulation connection from pulvinar to parietal showed an advantage to the perception of tools. These results incorporate the subcortical regions into the object processing network and highlight that domain organization appears to be an overarching principle across various processing stages in the brain.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Viewing objects belonging to different domains elicited different cortical regions, but whether the domain organization applied to the subcortical structures (e.g., pulvinar) was unknown. Multiple fMRI activation experiments revealed that object pictures belonging to different domains elicited differential patterns of response in the pulvinar, with robust left lateralization for tool pictures, and distinct, bilateral (with rightward tendency) clusters for animals. Combining the resting-state functional connectivity and dynamic causal modeling analysis on task-based fMRI data, we found domain-preferring activity distribution in the pulvinar aligned with that in cortical regions. These results highlight the need for coherent visual theories that explain the mechanisms underlying the domain organization across various processing stages.
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5
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Liu TT, Fu JZ, Chai Y, Japee S, Chen G, Ungerleider LG, Merriam EP. Layer-specific, retinotopically-diffuse modulation in human visual cortex in response to viewing emotionally expressive faces. Nat Commun 2022; 13:6302. [PMID: 36273204 PMCID: PMC9588045 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33580-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2021] [Accepted: 09/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Viewing faces that are perceived as emotionally expressive evokes enhanced neural responses in multiple brain regions, a phenomenon thought to depend critically on the amygdala. This emotion-related modulation is evident even in primary visual cortex (V1), providing a potential neural substrate by which emotionally salient stimuli can affect perception. How does emotional valence information, computed in the amygdala, reach V1? Here we use high-resolution functional MRI to investigate the layer profile and retinotopic distribution of neural activity specific to emotional facial expressions. Across three experiments, human participants viewed centrally presented face stimuli varying in emotional expression and performed a gender judgment task. We found that facial valence sensitivity was evident only in superficial cortical layers and was not restricted to the retinotopic location of the stimuli, consistent with diffuse feedback-like projections from the amygdala. Together, our results provide a feedback mechanism by which the amygdala directly modulates activity at the earliest stage of visual processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tina T. Liu
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Jason Z Fu
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Yuhui Chai
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Shruti Japee
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Gang Chen
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Leslie G. Ungerleider
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Elisha P. Merriam
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
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6
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Castellotti S, Francisci C, Del Viva MM. Pupillary response to real, illusory, and implied motion. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0254105. [PMID: 34197536 PMCID: PMC8248605 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254105] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2021] [Accepted: 06/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The perception of moving objects (real motion) is a critical function for interacting with a dynamic environment. Motion perception can be also induced by particular structural features of static images (illusory motion) or by photographic images of subjects in motion (implied motion, IM). Many cortical areas are involved in motion processing, particularly the medial temporal cortical area (MT), dedicated to the processing of real, illusory, and implied motion. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the influence of high-level visual processes on pupillary responses. However, just a few studies have measured the effect of motion processing on the pupil, and not always with consistent results. Here we systematically investigate the effects of real, illusory, and implied motion on the pupil diameter for the first time, by showing different types of stimuli (movies, illusions, and photos) with the same average luminance to the same observers. We find different pupillary responses depending on the nature of motion. Real motion elicits a larger pupillary dilation than IM, which in turn induces more dilation than control photos representing static subjects (No-IM). The pupil response is sensitive even to the strength of IM, as photos with enhanced IM (blur, motion streaks, speed lines) induce larger dilation than simple freezed IM (subjects captured in the instant they are moving). Also, the subject represented in the stimulus matters: human figures are interpreted as more dynamic and induce larger dilation than objects/animals. Interestingly, illusory motion induces much less dilation than all the other motion categories, despite being seen as moving. Overall, pupil responses depend on the individual perception of dynamicity, confirming that the pupil is modulated by the subjective interpretation of complex stimuli. We argue that the different pupillary responses to real, illusory, and implied motion reflect the top-down modulations of different cortical areas involved in their processing.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Carlo Francisci
- Department of Neurofarba, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
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7
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Staňková H, Janovcová M, Peléšková Š, Sedláčková K, Landová E, Frynta D. The Ultimate List of the Most Frightening and Disgusting Animals: Negative Emotions Elicited by Animals in Central European Respondents. Animals (Basel) 2021; 11:ani11030747. [PMID: 33803132 PMCID: PMC7999229 DOI: 10.3390/ani11030747] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2021] [Revised: 03/01/2021] [Accepted: 03/03/2021] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Animals have always played an important role in our everyday life. They are given more attention than inanimate objects, which have been adaptive during the evolution of mankind, with some animal species still presenting a real threat to us. In this study, we focused on the species usually evaluated as the scariest and most disgusting in the animal kingdom. We analyzed which characteristics (e.g., weight, potential threat for humans) influence their evaluation in a nonclinical Central European WEIRD population (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic). The tested animals were divided into two separated sets containing 34 standardized photos evoking predominantly one negative emotion, fear or disgust. The pictures were ranked according to their emotional intensity by 160 adult respondents with high inter-rater agreement. The most fear-eliciting species are mostly large vertebrates (e.g., carnivorans, ungulates, sharks, crocodiles), whereas smaller fear-evoking vertebrates are represented by snakes and invertebrates are represented by arachnids. The most disgust-evoking animals are human endo- and ectoparasites or animals visually resembling them. Humans emotionally react to fear-evoking animals that represent a real threat; however, identifying truly dangerous disgust-evoking animals might be harder. The results also support a somewhat special position of snakes and spiders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helena Staňková
- Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Viničná 7, 128 43 Prague, Czech Republic; (H.S.); (Š.P.); (K.S.)
| | - Markéta Janovcová
- National Institute of Mental Health, Topolová 748, 250 67 Klecany, Czech Republic; (M.J.); (D.F.)
| | - Šárka Peléšková
- Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Viničná 7, 128 43 Prague, Czech Republic; (H.S.); (Š.P.); (K.S.)
- National Institute of Mental Health, Topolová 748, 250 67 Klecany, Czech Republic; (M.J.); (D.F.)
| | - Kristýna Sedláčková
- Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Viničná 7, 128 43 Prague, Czech Republic; (H.S.); (Š.P.); (K.S.)
| | - Eva Landová
- Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Viničná 7, 128 43 Prague, Czech Republic; (H.S.); (Š.P.); (K.S.)
- National Institute of Mental Health, Topolová 748, 250 67 Klecany, Czech Republic; (M.J.); (D.F.)
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +420-723-409-406
| | - Daniel Frynta
- National Institute of Mental Health, Topolová 748, 250 67 Klecany, Czech Republic; (M.J.); (D.F.)
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8
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Lin H, Müller-Bardorff M, Gathmann B, Brieke J, Mothes-Lasch M, Bruchmann M, Miltner WHR, Straube T. Stimulus arousal drives amygdalar responses to emotional expressions across sensory modalities. Sci Rep 2020; 10:1898. [PMID: 32024891 PMCID: PMC7002496 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-58839-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2019] [Accepted: 12/23/2019] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
The factors that drive amygdalar responses to emotionally significant stimuli are still a matter of debate - particularly the proneness of the amygdala to respond to negatively-valenced stimuli has been discussed controversially. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether the amygdala responds in a modality-general fashion or whether modality-specific idiosyncrasies exist. Therefore, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study systematically investigated amygdalar responding to stimulus valence and arousal of emotional expressions across visual and auditory modalities. During scanning, participants performed a gender judgment task while prosodic and facial emotional expressions were presented. The stimuli varied in stimulus valence and arousal by including neutral, happy and angry expressions of high and low emotional intensity. Results demonstrate amygdalar activation as a function of stimulus arousal and accordingly associated emotional intensity regardless of stimulus valence. Furthermore, arousal-driven amygdalar responding did not depend on the visual and auditory modalities of emotional expressions. Thus, the current results are consistent with the notion that the amygdala codes general stimulus relevance across visual and auditory modalities irrespective of valence. In addition, whole brain analyses revealed that effects in visual and auditory areas were driven mainly by high intense emotional facial and vocal stimuli, respectively, suggesting modality-specific representations of emotional expressions in auditory and visual cortices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Huiyan Lin
- Institute of Applied Psychology, School of Public Administration, Guangdong University of Finance, 510521, Guangzhou, China.
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, 48149, Muenster, Germany.
| | - Miriam Müller-Bardorff
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, 48149, Muenster, Germany
| | - Bettina Gathmann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, 48149, Muenster, Germany
| | - Jaqueline Brieke
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, 48149, Muenster, Germany
| | - Martin Mothes-Lasch
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, 48149, Muenster, Germany
| | - Maximilian Bruchmann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, 48149, Muenster, Germany
| | - Wolfgang H R Miltner
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, 07743, Jena, Germany
| | - Thomas Straube
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, 48149, Muenster, Germany
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9
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Eldaief MC, Perez DL, Quimby M, Hochberg D, Touroutoglou A, Barrett LF, Dickerson BC. Atrophy in Distinct Corticolimbic Networks Subserving Socioaffective Behavior in Semantic Variant Primary Progressive Aphasia. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord 2020; 49:589-597. [PMID: 33691310 PMCID: PMC8812818 DOI: 10.1159/000511341] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2020] [Accepted: 09/03/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Although traditionally conceptualized as a language disorder, semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) is often accompanied by significant behavioral and affective symptoms which considerably increase disease morbidity. Specifically, these neuropsychiatric symptoms are characterized by breaches in normative socioaffective function, for example, an inability to read social cues, excessive trusting of others, and decreased empathy. Our prior neuroimaging work identified 3 corticolimbic networks anchored in the amygdala, temporal pole, and frontoinsular cortex: an affiliation network, theorized to mediate social approach behavior; an aversion network, theorized to subserve the appraisal of social threat; and a perception network, theorized to mediate the detection of social cues. We hy-pothesized that degeneration of these networks could provide neuroanatomical substrates for socioaffective deficits in svPPA. METHODS We examined hypothesized relationships between subscores on the Social Impairment Rating Scale (SIRS) and atrophy in each of these 3 networks in a group of 16 svPPA patients (using matched cognitively normal controls as a reference). RESULTS Consistent with our predictions, the magnitude of atrophy in the affiliation network in svPPA patients correlated with the SIRS subscore of socioemotional detachment, while the magnitude of atrophy in the aversion network in svPPA patients correlated with the SIRS subscore of inappropriate trusting. We did not find the predicted association between perception network atrophy and the SIRS subscore of lack of attention to social cues. CONCLUSION These findings highlight specific socioaffective deficits in svPPA and provide a neuroanatomical basis for these impairments by linking them to networks commonly targeted in this disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark C. Eldaief
- Frontotemporal Disorders Unit and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA,Division of Neuropsychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,Center for Brain Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - David L. Perez
- Frontotemporal Disorders Unit and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA,Division of Neuropsychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,Cognitive Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA
| | - Megan Quimby
- Frontotemporal Disorders Unit and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Daisy Hochberg
- Frontotemporal Disorders Unit and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Alexandra Touroutoglou
- Frontotemporal Disorders Unit and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA
| | - Lisa Feldman Barrett
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA,Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston MA USA
| | - Bradford C. Dickerson
- Frontotemporal Disorders Unit and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA
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10
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Blair KS, Bashford-Largo J, Shah N, Lukoff J, Elowsky J, Vogel S, Emmert A, Zhang R, Dobbertin M, Pollak S, Blair JR. Sexual Abuse in Adolescents Is Associated With Atypically Increased Responsiveness Within Regions Implicated in Self-Referential and Emotional Processing to Approaching Animate Threats. Front Psychiatry 2020; 11:345. [PMID: 32612545 PMCID: PMC7308525 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00345] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2019] [Accepted: 04/06/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Childhood sexual abuse is associated with significant subsequent pathology and neurodevelopmental disruption. In particular, childhood sexual abuse has been associated with heightened threat sensitivity. However, little work has directly investigated this issue. In this study, we examine the association of childhood sexual abuse to neural and behavioral responses to looming, threatening face stimuli. The study involved 23 adolescents with significant past sexual abuse and 24 comparison individuals matched on IQ, age, and sex. Participants were scanned during a looming threat task that involved negative and neutral, human faces and animals that appeared to either loom toward or recede from the participant. We found that adolescents who had been previously subjected to sexual abuse, relative to comparison adolescents, showed increased neural responses to threatening looming stimuli in regions including rostral and superior frontal gyrus as well as posterior cingulate gyrus. In addition, they were significantly more slowed by looming stimuli, particularly if these were human faces, than adolescents who had not been exposed. These data demonstrate that prior sexual abuse was associated with heightened neural responsiveness to looming threats in a series of regions beyond the amygdala. These data are interpreted within models of rostromedial frontal and posterior cingulate cortices that stress their role in self-referential emotional processing and emotional maintenance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karina S Blair
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Johannah Bashford-Largo
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Niraj Shah
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Jennie Lukoff
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Jaimie Elowsky
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Steven Vogel
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Amanda Emmert
- Department of Psychiatry, Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE, United States
| | - Ru Zhang
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Matthew Dobbertin
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Seth Pollak
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States
| | - James R Blair
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
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11
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Beanland V, Wynne RA. Effects of roadside memorials on drivers' risk perception and eye movements. COGNITIVE RESEARCH-PRINCIPLES AND IMPLICATIONS 2019; 4:32. [PMID: 31414254 PMCID: PMC6694370 DOI: 10.1186/s41235-019-0184-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2017] [Accepted: 07/11/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022]
Abstract
Abstract Road crashes are a leading cause of death worldwide. In many countries, it is common to see spontaneous roadside memorials constructed in response to road fatalities. These memorials are controversial and are explicitly banned in many jurisdictions. Advocates argue that the presence of memorials improves safety by making other drivers aware of an especially dangerous road where others have died, whereas opponents argue that they are distracting and decrease safety by diverting drivers’ attention away from the road. However, there has been almost no research examining the effects of roadside memorials on road user behavior and safety. In this study, 40 drivers viewed videos of road scenes with and without memorials, to examine how the presence of roadside memorials influences drivers’ attentional allocation (indicated by eye movements to the roadside area) and safety-related behaviors (indicated by perceived risk ratings and preferred travel speeds for the road). The findings indicate memorials do capture visual attention, as participants were more likely to fixate on memorials compared with a comparison object placed on the roadside. However, fixations on the memorials, and to the roadside area in general, were relatively brief. The presence of memorials did not affect perceived risk and did not produce a clear systematic effect on preferred travel speed. Nearly all drivers in our study supported permitting roadside memorials, but a small number strongly opposed memorials on the belief they are distracting and/or distressing. Preregistration details This study was preregistered with Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications and received in-principle acceptance on 4 March 2018. The preregistered protocol is available here: 10.6084/m9.figshare.6181937. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s41235-019-0184-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vanessa Beanland
- Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia. .,Department of Psychology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, 9054, New Zealand.
| | - Rachael A Wynne
- Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia
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12
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Blair RJR, White SF, Tyler PM, Johnson K, Lukoff J, Thornton LC, Leiker EK, Filbey F, Dobbertin M, Blair KS. Threat Responsiveness as a Function of Cannabis and Alcohol Use Disorder Severity. J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol 2019; 29:526-534. [PMID: 31170004 DOI: 10.1089/cap.2019.0004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Objective: Two of the most commonly abused substances by adolescents in the United States are alcohol and cannabis, both of which are associated with adverse medical and psychiatric outcomes throughout the lifespan. Both are assumed to impact the development of emotional processing although findings on the direction of this impact have been mixed. Preclinical animal work and some functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) work with humans have suggested cannabis use disorder (CUD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are associated with increased threat responsiveness. However, other fMRI work has indicated CUD/AUD are associated with diminished threat responsiveness. In this study, we report on a study examining the relationship of severity of CUD/AUD and threat responsiveness in an adolescent population. Methods: The study involved 87 (43 male) adolescents with varying levels of CUD/AUD symptomatology (N = 45 above clinical cutoffs for CUD or AUD). They were scanned with fMRI during a looming threat task that involved images of threatening and neutral human faces or animals that appeared to be either looming or receding. Results: Increasing levels of CUD symptomatology were associated with decreased responding to looming stimuli within regions, including rostral frontal and fusiform gyrus as well as the amygdala. There were no relationships with AUD symptomatology. Conclusions: These data indicate that CUD in particular is associated with a decrease in responsiveness to the looming threat cue possibly relating to the putative neurotoxic impact of cannabis abuse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert James R Blair
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
| | - Stuart F White
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
| | - Patrick M Tyler
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
| | - Kimberly Johnson
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
| | - Jennie Lukoff
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
| | - Laura C Thornton
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
| | - Emily K Leiker
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
| | - Francesca Filbey
- Center for BrainHealth, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, Texas
| | - Matt Dobbertin
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
| | - Karina S Blair
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska
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13
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Müller-Bardorff M, Bruchmann M, Mothes-Lasch M, Zwitserlood P, Schlossmacher I, Hofmann D, Miltner W, Straube T. Early brain responses to affective faces: A simultaneous EEG-fMRI study. Neuroimage 2018; 178:660-667. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.05.081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2018] [Revised: 05/23/2018] [Accepted: 05/31/2018] [Indexed: 10/14/2022] Open
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14
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White SF, Thornton LC, Leshin J, Clanton R, Sinclair S, Coker-Appiah D, Meffert H, Hwang S, Blair JR. Looming Threats and Animacy: Reduced Responsiveness in Youth with Disrupted Behavior Disorders. JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 2018; 46:741-754. [PMID: 28776147 PMCID: PMC5809317 DOI: 10.1007/s10802-017-0335-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Theoretical models have implicated amygdala dysfunction in the development of Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBDs; Conduct Disorder/Oppositional Defiant Disorder). Amygdala dysfunction impacts valence evaluation/response selection and emotion attention in youth with DBDs, particularly in those with elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits. However, amygdala responsiveness during social cognition and the responsiveness of the acute threat circuitry (amygdala/periaqueductal gray) in youth with DBDs have been less well-examined, particularly with reference to CU traits. 31 youth with DBDs and 27 typically developing youth (IQ, age and gender-matched) completed a threat paradigm during fMRI where animate and inanimate, threatening and neutral stimuli appeared to loom towards or recede from participants. Reduced responsiveness to threat variables, including visual threats and encroaching stimuli, was observed within acute threat circuitry and temporal, lateral frontal and parietal cortices in youth with DBDs. This reduced responsiveness, at least with respect to the looming variable, was modulated by CU traits. Reduced responsiveness to animacy information was also observed within temporal, lateral frontal and parietal cortices, but not within amygdala. Reduced responsiveness to animacy information as a function of CU traits was observed in PCC, though not within the amygdala. Reduced threat responsiveness may contribute to risk taking and impulsivity in youth with DBDs, particularly those with high levels of CU traits. Future work will need to examine the degree to which this reduced response to animacy is independent of amygdala dysfunction in youth with DBDs and what role PCC might play in the dysfunctional social cognition observed in youth with high levels of CU traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stuart F White
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA.
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, NIMH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
| | - Laura C Thornton
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - Joseph Leshin
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, NIMH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Roberta Clanton
- Department of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Stephen Sinclair
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, NIMH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Dionne Coker-Appiah
- Department of Psychiatry, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Harma Meffert
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, NIMH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Soonjo Hwang
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, NIMH, Bethesda, MD, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - James R Blair
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, NIMH, Bethesda, MD, USA
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15
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Vida MD, Behrmann M. Subcortical Facilitation of Behavioral Responses to Threat. Sci Rep 2017; 7:13087. [PMID: 29026099 PMCID: PMC5638842 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-13203-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2017] [Accepted: 09/20/2017] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Behavioral responses to threat are critical to survival. Several cortical and subcortical brain regions respond selectively to threat. However, the relation of these neural responses and their underlying representations to behavior is unclear. We examined the contribution of lower-order subcortical representations to behavioral responses to threat in adult humans. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants viewed pairs of images presented to the same eye or to different eyes. We observed a monocular advantage, which indicates subcortical facilitation, for ancestral threats (snakes, spiders), but not for modern threats, positive images, or neutral images. In Experiment 3, we presented pairs of snakes or neutral images into the temporal or nasal hemifield. For snakes only, we observed a temporal hemifield advantage, which indicates facilitation by the retino-tectal subcortical pathway. These results advance the current understanding of processing of threat by adult humans by revealing the characteristics of behaviors driven by a lower-order neural mechanism that is specialized for the processing of ancestral threats. The results also contribute to ongoing debates concerning the biological generality of neural mechanisms for processing of complex, emotionally-relevant stimuli by providing evidence for conservation of lower-order neural mechanisms for processing of ancestral threats across both ontogeny and phylogeny.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark D Vida
- Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto, Canada.
| | - Marlene Behrmann
- Department of Psychology and Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.
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16
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Thornton LC, Penner EA, Nolan ZT, Adalio CJ, Sinclair S, Meffert H, Hwang S, Blair RJR, White SF. The processing of animacy information is disrupted as a function of callous-unemotional traits in youth with disruptive behavior disorders. NEUROIMAGE-CLINICAL 2017; 16:498-506. [PMID: 28971003 PMCID: PMC5609860 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2017.08.024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2017] [Revised: 08/14/2017] [Accepted: 08/31/2017] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Atypical amygdala responses to emotional stimuli have been consistently reported in youth with Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBDs; Conduct Disorder/Oppositional Defiant Disorder). However, responding to animacy stimuli has not been systematically investigated. Yet, the amygdala is known to be responsive to animacy stimuli and impairment in responsiveness to animacy information may have implications for social cognitive development. Twenty-nine youth with DBDs and 20 typically developing youth, matched for IQ, age (Mage = 14.45, SD = 2.05) and gender, completed a dot probe task during fMRI. Stimuli consisted of negative/faces, negative/objects, neutral/faces and neutral/objects images. Youth with DBDs, relative to typically developing youth, showed: i) reduced amygdala and lateral temporal cortex responses to faces relative to objects. Moreover, within the group of youth with DBDs, increasing callous-unemotional traits were associated with lesser amygdala responses to faces relative to objects. These data suggest that youth with DBDs, particularly those with high levels of CU traits exhibit dysfunction in animacy processing in the amygdala. This dysfunction may underpin the asociality reported in these youth. Animacy processing within the amygdala is a critical component of social cognition. Youth with DBDs had reduced responses to faces compared to objects in amygdala. CU traits were associated with reduced amygdala responses to faces. Youth with DBDs, particularly those with CU exhibit problems in animacy processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura C Thornton
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | | | - Zachary T Nolan
- Pennsylvania State University School of Medicine, Hershey, PA, United States
| | | | - Stephen Sinclair
- National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States
| | - Harma Meffert
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
| | - Soonjo Hwang
- Univeristy of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States
| | - R James R Blair
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States.,National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States
| | - Stuart F White
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, United States
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17
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Abstract
Previous studies have shown that the amygdala is more involved in processing animate categories, such as humans and animals, than inanimate objects, but little is known regarding whether this animate advantage applies to auditory stimuli. To address this issue, we performed a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study with emotion and category as factors, in which subjects heard sounds from different categories (i.e., humans, animals, and objects) in negative and neutral dimensions. Emotional levels and semantic familiarity were matched across categories. The results showed that the amygdala responded more to human vocalization than to animal vocalization and sounds of inanimate objects in both negative and neutral valences, and more to animal sounds than to objects in neural condition. In addition, the amygdala, together with the insula and the right superior temporal sulcus, further distinguished human voices from animal sounds. These data indicated that the amygdala is prepared to respond to animate sources, especially human vocalizations in auditory modality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanbing Zhao
- a School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health , Peking University , Beijing , China
| | - Qing Sun
- a School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health , Peking University , Beijing , China
| | - Gang Chen
- b Scientific and Statistical Computing Core , National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health , Bethesda , MD , USA
| | - Jiongjiong Yang
- a School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health , Peking University , Beijing , China
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18
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Mellem MS, Jasmin KM, Peng C, Martin A. Sentence processing in anterior superior temporal cortex shows a social-emotional bias. Neuropsychologia 2016; 89:217-224. [PMID: 27329686 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.06.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2016] [Revised: 05/17/2016] [Accepted: 06/17/2016] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The anterior region of the left superior temporal gyrus/superior temporal sulcus (aSTG/STS) has been implicated in two very different cognitive functions: sentence processing and social-emotional processing. However, the vast majority of the sentence stimuli in previous reports have been of a social or social-emotional nature suggesting that sentence processing may be confounded with semantic content. To evaluate this possibility we had subjects read word lists that differed in phrase/constituent size (single words, 3-word phrases, 6-word sentences) and semantic content (social-emotional, social, and inanimate objects) while scanned in a 7T environment. This allowed us to investigate if the aSTG/STS responded to increasing constituent structure (with increased activity as a function of constituent size) with or without regard to a specific domain of concepts, i.e., social and/or social-emotional content. Activity in the left aSTG/STS was found to increase with constituent size. This region was also modulated by content, however, such that social-emotional concepts were preferred over social and object stimuli. Reading also induced content type effects in domain-specific semantic regions. Those preferring social-emotional content included aSTG/STS, inferior frontal gyrus, posterior STS, lateral fusiform, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and amygdala, regions included in the "social brain", while those preferring object content included parahippocampal gyrus, retrosplenial cortex, and caudate, regions involved in object processing. These results suggest that semantic content affects higher-level linguistic processing and should be taken into account in future studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Monika S Mellem
- Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, United States.
| | - Kyle M Jasmin
- Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, United States; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, WC1N 3AR, England
| | - Cynthia Peng
- Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, United States
| | - Alex Martin
- Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, United States
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19
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Gao H, Jia Z. Detection of Threats under Inattentional Blindness and Perceptual Load. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2016. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-016-9460-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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20
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Calvillo DP, Hawkins WC. Animate Objects are Detected More Frequently than Inanimate Objects in Inattentional Blindness Tasks Independently of Threat. The Journal of General Psychology 2016; 143:101-15. [DOI: 10.1080/00221309.2016.1163249] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/30/2023]
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21
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Fang Z, Li H, Chen G, Yang J. Unconscious Processing of Negative Animals and Objects: Role of the Amygdala Revealed by fMRI. Front Hum Neurosci 2016; 10:146. [PMID: 27092067 PMCID: PMC4820445 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00146] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2015] [Accepted: 03/21/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that emotional stimuli can be processed through the amygdala without conscious awareness. The amygdala is also involved in processing animate and social information. However, it is unclear whether different categories of pictures (e.g., animals, objects) elicit different activity in the amygdale and other regions without conscious awareness. The objective of this study was to explore whether the factors of category, emotion and picture context modulate brain activation for unconscious processing. Pictures denoting different nonhuman animals and objects in negative and neutral emotional valences were presented using a sandwich-masking paradigm. Half of them were presented with human-related information in the contexts, and half were not. Our results showed significant interaction among category, emotion and context in the amygdala and subcortical regions. Specifically, negative animals elicited stronger activation in these regions than negative objects, especially with human contexts. In addition, there were different correlation patterns between the amygdala and cortical regions according to whether they included human context. There were limited activations in cortical category-related networks. These results suggest that the amygdala and subcortical regions dominantly process negative animals, and contextual information modulates their activities, making threatening stimuli that are most relevant to human survival preferentially processed without conscious awareness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhiyong Fang
- Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University Beijing, China
| | - Han Li
- Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University Beijing, China
| | - Gang Chen
- Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)/National Institutes of Health (NIH)/Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - JiongJiong Yang
- Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University Beijing, China
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22
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Somppi S, Törnqvist H, Kujala MV, Hänninen L, Krause CM, Vainio O. Dogs Evaluate Threatening Facial Expressions by Their Biological Validity--Evidence from Gazing Patterns. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0143047. [PMID: 26761433 PMCID: PMC4711950 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0143047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2014] [Accepted: 10/30/2015] [Indexed: 01/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Appropriate response to companions' emotional signals is important for all social creatures. The emotional expressions of humans and non-human animals have analogies in their form and function, suggesting shared evolutionary roots, but very little is known about how animals other than primates view and process facial expressions. In primates, threat-related facial expressions evoke exceptional viewing patterns compared with neutral or positive stimuli. Here, we explore if domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have such an attentional bias toward threatening social stimuli and whether observed emotional expressions affect dogs' gaze fixation distribution among the facial features (eyes, midface and mouth). We recorded the voluntary eye gaze of 31 domestic dogs during viewing of facial photographs of humans and dogs with three emotional expressions (threatening, pleasant and neutral). We found that dogs' gaze fixations spread systematically among facial features. The distribution of fixations was altered by the seen expression, but eyes were the most probable targets of the first fixations and gathered longer looking durations than mouth regardless of the viewed expression. The examination of the inner facial features as a whole revealed more pronounced scanning differences among expressions. This suggests that dogs do not base their perception of facial expressions on the viewing of single structures, but the interpretation of the composition formed by eyes, midface and mouth. Dogs evaluated social threat rapidly and this evaluation led to attentional bias, which was dependent on the depicted species: threatening conspecifics' faces evoked heightened attention but threatening human faces instead an avoidance response. We propose that threatening signals carrying differential biological validity are processed via distinctive neurocognitive pathways. Both of these mechanisms may have an adaptive significance for domestic dogs. The findings provide a novel perspective on understanding the processing of emotional expressions and sensitivity to social threat in non-primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sanni Somppi
- Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- * E-mail:
| | - Heini Törnqvist
- Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- Cognitive Science, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Miiamaaria V. Kujala
- Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Laura Hänninen
- Department of Production Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Christina M. Krause
- Cognitive Science, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Outi Vainio
- Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
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23
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Whyte EM, Behrmann M, Minshew NJ, Garcia NV, Scherf KS. Animal, but not human, faces engage the distributed face network in adolescents with autism. Dev Sci 2015; 19:306-17. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12305] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2014] [Accepted: 02/17/2015] [Indexed: 01/23/2023]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Marlene Behrmann
- Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology; University of Pittsburgh Medical School; USA
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24
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White SF, Adalio C, Nolan ZT, Yang J, Martin A, Blair JR. The amygdala's response to face and emotional information and potential category-specific modulation of temporal cortex as a function of emotion. Front Hum Neurosci 2014; 8:714. [PMID: 25309390 PMCID: PMC4161045 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00714] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2014] [Accepted: 08/26/2014] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
The amygdala has been implicated in the processing of emotion and animacy information and to be responsive to novelty. However, the way in which these functions interact is poorly understood. Subjects (N = 30) viewed threatening or neutral images that could be either animate (facial expressions) or inanimate (objects) in the context of a dot probe task. The amygdala showed responses to both emotional and animacy information, but no emotion by stimulus-type interaction; i.e., emotional face and object stimuli, when matched for arousal and valence, generate comparable amygdala activity relative to neutral face and object stimuli. Additionally, a habituation effect was not seen in amygdala; however, increased amygdala activity was observed for incongruent relative to congruent negative trials in second vs. first exposures. Furthermore, medial fusiform gyrus showed increased response to inanimate stimuli, while superior temporal sulcus showed increased response to animate stimuli. Greater functional connectivity between bilateral amygdala and medial fusiform gyrus was observed to negative vs. neutral objects, but not to fearful vs. neutral faces. The current data suggest that the amygdala is responsive to animate and emotional stimuli. Additionally, these data suggest that the interaction between the various functions of the amygdala may need to be considered simultaneously to fully understand how they interact. Moreover, they suggest category-specific modulation of medial fusiform cortex as a function of emotion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stuart F White
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Christopher Adalio
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Zachary T Nolan
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD, USA
| | | | - Alex Martin
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - James R Blair
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD, USA
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25
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Wang S, Xu J, Jiang M, Zhao Q, Hurlemann R, Adolphs R. Autism spectrum disorder, but not amygdala lesions, impairs social attention in visual search. Neuropsychologia 2014; 63:259-74. [PMID: 25218953 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.09.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2014] [Revised: 08/29/2014] [Accepted: 09/01/2014] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
People with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have pervasive impairments in social interactions, a diagnostic component that may have its roots in atypical social motivation and attention. One of the brain structures implicated in the social abnormalities seen in ASD is the amygdala. To further characterize the impairment of people with ASD in social attention, and to explore the possible role of the amygdala, we employed a series of visual search tasks with both social (faces and people with different postures, emotions, ages, and genders) and non-social stimuli (e.g., electronics, food, and utensils). We first conducted trial-wise analyses of fixation properties and elucidated visual search mechanisms. We found that an attentional mechanism of initial orientation could explain the detection advantage of non-social targets. We then zoomed into fixation-wise analyses. We defined target-relevant effects as the difference in the percentage of fixations that fell on target-congruent vs. target-incongruent items in the array. In Experiment 1, we tested 8 high-functioning adults with ASD, 3 adults with focal bilateral amygdala lesions, and 19 controls. Controls rapidly oriented to target-congruent items and showed a strong and sustained preference for fixating them. Strikingly, people with ASD oriented significantly less and more slowly to target-congruent items, an attentional deficit especially with social targets. By contrast, patients with amygdala lesions performed indistinguishably from controls. In Experiment 2, we recruited a different sample of 13 people with ASD and 8 healthy controls, and tested them on the same search arrays but with all array items equalized for low-level saliency. The results replicated those of Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, we recruited 13 people with ASD, 8 healthy controls, 3 amygdala lesion patients and another group of 11 controls and tested them on a simpler array. Here our group effect for ASD strongly diminished and all four subject groups showed similar target-relevant effects. These findings argue for an attentional deficit in ASD that is disproportionate for social stimuli, cannot be explained by low-level visual properties of the stimuli, and is more severe with high-load top-down task demands. Furthermore, this deficit appears to be independent of the amygdala, and not evident from general social bias independent of the target-directed search.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuo Wang
- Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
| | - Juan Xu
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117583 Singapore, Singapore
| | - Ming Jiang
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117583 Singapore, Singapore
| | - Qi Zhao
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117583 Singapore, Singapore
| | - Rene Hurlemann
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany
| | - Ralph Adolphs
- Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA; Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
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Van Strien JW, Franken IHA, Huijding J. Testing the snake-detection hypothesis: larger early posterior negativity in humans to pictures of snakes than to pictures of other reptiles, spiders and slugs. Front Hum Neurosci 2014; 8:691. [PMID: 25237303 PMCID: PMC4154444 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00691] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2014] [Accepted: 08/18/2014] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
According to the snake detection hypothesis (Isbell, 2006), fear specifically of snakes may have pushed evolutionary changes in the primate visual system allowing pre-attentional visual detection of fearful stimuli. A previous study demonstrated that snake pictures, when compared to spiders or bird pictures, draw more early attention as reflected by larger early posterior negativity (EPN). Here we report two studies that further tested the snake detection hypothesis. In Study 1, we tested whether the enlarged EPN is specific for snakes or also generalizes to other reptiles. Twenty-four healthy, non-phobic women watched the random rapid serial presentation of snake, crocodile, and turtle pictures. The EPN was scored as the mean activity at occipital electrodes (PO3, O1, Oz, PO4, O2) in the 225-300 ms time window after picture onset. The EPN was significantly larger for snake pictures than for pictures of the other reptiles. In Study 2, we tested whether disgust plays a role in the modulation of the EPN and whether preferential processing of snakes also can be found in men. 12 men and 12 women watched snake, spider, and slug pictures. Both men and women exhibited the largest EPN amplitudes to snake pictures, intermediate amplitudes to spider pictures and the smallest amplitudes to slug pictures. Disgust ratings were not associated with EPN amplitudes. The results replicate previous findings and suggest that ancestral priorities modulate the early capture of visual attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan W Van Strien
- Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam Rotterdam, Netherlands
| | - Ingmar H A Franken
- Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam Rotterdam, Netherlands
| | - Jorg Huijding
- Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam Rotterdam, Netherlands
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27
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Wang S, Tsuchiya N, New J, Hurlemann R, Adolphs R. Preferential attention to animals and people is independent of the amygdala. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2014; 10:371-80. [PMID: 24795434 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsu065] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The amygdala is thought to play a critical role in detecting salient stimuli. Several studies have taken ecological approaches to investigating such saliency, and argue for domain-specific effects for processing certain natural stimulus categories, in particular faces and animals. Linking this to the amygdala, neurons in the human amygdala have been found to respond strongly to faces and also to animals. However, the amygdala's necessary role for such category-specific effects at the behavioral level remains untested. Here we tested four rare patients with bilateral amygdala lesions on an established change-detection protocol. Consistent with prior published studies, healthy controls showed reliably faster and more accurate detection of people and animals, as compared with artifacts and plants. So did all four amygdala patients: there were no differences in phenomenal change blindness, in behavioral reaction time to detect changes or in eye-tracking measures. The findings provide decisive evidence against a critical participation of the amygdala in rapid initial processing of attention to animate stimuli, suggesting that the necessary neural substrates for this phenomenon arise either in other subcortical structures (such as the pulvinar) or within the cortex itself.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuo Wang
- Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Decoding and Controlling Brain Information, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076, Japan, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany
| | - Naotsugu Tsuchiya
- Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Decoding and Controlling Brain Information, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076, Japan, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Decoding and Controlling Brain Information, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076, Japan, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Decoding and Controlling Brain Information, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076, Japan, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany
| | - Joshua New
- Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Decoding and Controlling Brain Information, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076, Japan, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany
| | - Rene Hurlemann
- Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Decoding and Controlling Brain Information, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076, Japan, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany
| | - Ralph Adolphs
- Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Decoding and Controlling Brain Information, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076, Japan, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Decoding and Controlling Brain Information, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0076, Japan, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany
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28
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Van Strien J, Eijlers R, Franken I, Huijding J. Snake pictures draw more early attention than spider pictures in non-phobic women: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Biol Psychol 2014; 96:150-7. [DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.12.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2013] [Revised: 12/18/2013] [Accepted: 12/18/2013] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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29
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Cao Z, Zhao Y, Tan T, Chen G, Ning X, Zhan L, Yang J. Distinct brain activity in processing negative pictures of animals and objects - the role of human contexts. Neuroimage 2013; 84:901-10. [PMID: 24099847 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.09.064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2013] [Revised: 09/25/2013] [Accepted: 09/26/2013] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that the amygdala is important in processing not only animate entities but also social information. It remains to be determined to what extent the factors of category and social context interact to modulate the activities of the amygdala and cortical regions. In this study, pictures depicting animals and inanimate objects in negative and neutral levels were presented. The contexts of the pictures differed in whether they included human/human parts. The factors of valence, arousal, familiarity and complexity of pictures were controlled across categories. The results showed that the amygdala activity was modulated by category and contextual information. Under the nonhuman context condition, the amygdala responded more to animals than objects for both negative and neutral pictures. In contrast, under the human context condition, the amygdala showed stronger activity for negative objects than animals. In addition to cortical regions related to object action, functional and effective connectivity analyses showed that the anterior prefrontal cortex interacted more with the amygdala for negative objects (vs. animals) in the human context condition, by a top-down modulation of the anterior prefrontal cortex to the amygdala. These results highlighted the effects of category and human contexts on modulating brain activity in emotional processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhijun Cao
- Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
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30
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Coker-Appiah DS, White SF, Clanton R, Yang J, Martin A, Blair RJR. Looming animate and inanimate threats: the response of the amygdala and periaqueductal gray. Soc Neurosci 2013; 8:621-30. [PMID: 24066700 PMCID: PMC3919685 DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2013.839480] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Looming stimuli are processed as threatening and activate basic neural defense systems. However, it is unclear how animacy information modulates this response. Participants (N = 25) viewed threatening or neutral images that were either animate (animals) or inanimate (objects) and which either approached (loomed) or receded from the participant. The amygdala was responsive to emotional, animacy, and looming information (particularly to looming threats and looming animate stimuli). Periaqueductal gray was also sensitive to emotional information and particularly responsive to looming threats. The data are interpreted within category-specific models of the amygdala and temporal cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dionne S. Coker-Appiah
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD
- Georgetown University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Washington, DC
| | - Stuart F. White
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD
| | - Roberta Clanton
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD
| | - Jiongjong Yang
- Peking University, Department of Psychology, Beijing, China
| | - Alex Martin
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD
| | - R. J. R. Blair
- Section on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD
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31
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Tan T, Li H, Wang Y, Yang J. Are we afraid of different categories of stimuli in identical ways? Evidence from skin conductance responses. PLoS One 2013; 8:e73165. [PMID: 24039879 PMCID: PMC3770652 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073165] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2013] [Accepted: 07/18/2013] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Studies have shown that emotional pictures attract more attention than neutral pictures, and pictures of living stimuli have similar advantage in driving attention (vs. nonliving). However, factors of emotion, category and picture context are usually mixed so that whether living and nonliving categories elicit different skin conductance (SC) responses, in both conscious and unconscious conditions, remains to be clarified. In this study, participants were presented with negative and neutral pictures denoting different living and nonliving concepts in conscious (Experiments 1 and 2) and unconscious conditions (40ms, Experiment 3) when their SC responses were measured. The picture context was manipulated in Experiments 2 and 3 as half including human-related information. In three experiments, the emotional levels of different categories were matched in different and identical cohorts of participants. The results showed that living pictures in a negative, high-arousing dimension elicited stronger SC responses than nonliving pictures. When nonhuman animals and inanimate objects were compared, the increased SC responses to animals was obtained only for negative pictures without human contexts in the conscious condition, but regardless of human context in the unconscious condition. These results suggested that contextual information and level of conscious awareness are important to modulate the animate advantage in emotional processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tengteng Tan
- Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Han Li
- Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Yingying Wang
- Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China
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32
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Dumas T, Dubal S, Attal Y, Chupin M, Jouvent R, Morel S, George N. MEG evidence for dynamic amygdala modulations by gaze and facial emotions. PLoS One 2013; 8:e74145. [PMID: 24040190 PMCID: PMC3769395 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0074145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2013] [Accepted: 07/26/2013] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Amygdala is a key brain region for face perception. While the role of amygdala in the perception of facial emotion and gaze has been extensively highlighted with fMRI, the unfolding in time of amydgala responses to emotional versus neutral faces with different gaze directions is scarcely known. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here we addressed this question in healthy subjects using MEG combined with an original source imaging method based on individual amygdala volume segmentation and the localization of sources in the amygdala volume. We found an early peak of amygdala activity that was enhanced for fearful relative to neutral faces between 130 and 170 ms. The effect of emotion was again significant in a later time range (310-350 ms). Moreover, the amygdala response was greater for direct relative averted gaze between 190 and 350 ms, and this effect was selective of fearful faces in the right amygdala. CONCLUSION Altogether, our results show that the amygdala is involved in the processing and integration of emotion and gaze cues from faces in different time ranges, thus underlining its role in multiple stages of face perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thibaud Dumas
- CNRS, UMR 7225, CRICM, Paris, France
- Inserm, U 975, Paris, France
- Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l′Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière (CRICM), UMR_S 975, and Centre MEG-CENIR, Paris, France
- CNRS, USR 3246, Centre Emotion, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
| | - Stéphanie Dubal
- CNRS, USR 3246, Centre Emotion, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
| | - Yohan Attal
- CNRS, UMR 7225, CRICM, Paris, France
- Inserm, U 975, Paris, France
- Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l′Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière (CRICM), UMR_S 975, and Centre MEG-CENIR, Paris, France
| | - Marie Chupin
- CNRS, UMR 7225, CRICM, Paris, France
- Inserm, U 975, Paris, France
- Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l′Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière (CRICM), UMR_S 975, and Centre MEG-CENIR, Paris, France
| | - Roland Jouvent
- CNRS, USR 3246, Centre Emotion, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
| | - Shasha Morel
- CNRS, UMR 7295, CeRCA, Université François-Rabelais, Tours, France
| | - Nathalie George
- CNRS, UMR 7225, CRICM, Paris, France
- Inserm, U 975, Paris, France
- Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l′Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière (CRICM), UMR_S 975, and Centre MEG-CENIR, Paris, France
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Dunsmoor JE, Kragel PA, Martin A, LaBar KS. Aversive learning modulates cortical representations of object categories. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2013; 24:2859-72. [PMID: 23709642 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bht138] [Citation(s) in RCA: 71] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Experimental studies of conditioned learning reveal activity changes in the amygdala and unimodal sensory cortex underlying fear acquisition to simple stimuli. However, real-world fears typically involve complex stimuli represented at the category level. A consequence of category-level representations of threat is that aversive experiences with particular category members may lead one to infer that related exemplars likewise pose a threat, despite variations in physical form. Here, we examined the effect of category-level representations of threat on human brain activation using 2 superordinate categories (animals and tools) as conditioned stimuli. Hemodynamic activity in the amygdala and category-selective cortex was modulated by the reinforcement contingency, leading to widespread fear of different exemplars from the reinforced category. Multivariate representational similarity analyses revealed that activity patterns in the amygdala and object-selective cortex were more similar among exemplars from the threat versus safe category. Learning to fear animate objects was additionally characterized by enhanced functional coupling between the amygdala and fusiform gyrus. Finally, hippocampal activity co-varied with object typicality and amygdala activation early during training. These findings provide novel evidence that aversive learning can modulate category-level representations of object concepts, thereby enabling individuals to express fear to a range of related stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph E Dunsmoor
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
| | - Philip A Kragel
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
| | - Alex Martin
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Kevin S LaBar
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
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Vrtička P, Sander D, Vuilleumier P. Lateralized interactive social content and valence processing within the human amygdala. Front Hum Neurosci 2013; 6:358. [PMID: 23346054 PMCID: PMC3548516 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00358] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2012] [Accepted: 12/26/2012] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
In the past, the amygdala has generally been conceptualized as a fear-processing module. Recently, however, it has been proposed to respond to all stimuli that are relevant with respect to the current needs, goals, and values of an individual. This raises the question of whether the human amygdala may differentiate between separate kinds of relevance. A distinction between emotional (vs. neutral) and social (vs. non-social) relevance is supported by previous studies showing that the human amygdala preferentially responds to both emotionally and socially significant information, and these factors might even display interactive encoding properties. However, no investigation has yet probed a full 2 (positive vs. negative valence) × 2 (social vs. non-social content) processing pattern, with neutral images as an additional baseline. Applying such an extended orthogonal factorial design, our fMRI study demonstrates that the human amygdala is (1) more strongly activated for neutral social vs. non-social information, (2) activated at a similar level when viewing social positive or negative images, but (3) displays a valence effect (negative vs. positive) for non-social images. In addition, this encoding pattern is not influenced by cognitive or behavioral emotion regulation mechanisms, and displays a hemispheric lateralization with more pronounced effects on the right side. Finally, the same valence × social content interaction was found in three additional cortical regions, namely the right fusiform gyrus, right anterior superior temporal gyrus, and medial orbitofrontal cortex. Overall, these findings suggest that valence and social content processing represent distinct kinds of relevance that interact within the human amygdala as well as in a more extensive cortical network, likely subserving a key role in relevance detection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pascal Vrtička
- Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Stanford University Stanford, CA, USA ; Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva Geneva, Switzerland ; Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Neurology and Department of Neurosciences, University Hospital and Medical School, University of Geneva Geneva, Switzerland ; Laboratory for the Study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression (E3 Lab), Department of Psychology, FPSE, University of Geneva Geneva, Switzerland
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