An fMRI investigation of race-related amygdala activity in African-American and Caucasian-American individuals.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the nature of amygdala sensitivity to race. Both African-American and Caucasian-American individuals showed greater amygdala activity to African-American targets than to Caucasian-American targets, suggesting that race-related amygdala activity may result from cultural learning rather than from the novelty of other races. Additionally, verbal encoding of African-American targets produced significantly less amygdala activity than perceptual encoding of African-American targets.
Lieberman
Matthew D
MD
Department of Psychology, Franz Hall, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1563, USA. lieber@ucla.edu
Hariri
Ahmad
A
Jarcho
Johanna M
JM
Eisenberger
Naomi I
NI
Bookheimer
Susan Y
SY
D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D044383:Black People / Q000523:psychology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003469:Culture; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011822:Race Relations / Q000523:psychology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*; D001741:Black or African American