Beyond threat: amygdala reactivity across multiple expressions of facial affect.
The amygdala has been consistently isolated as a key neural substrate for processing facial displays of affect. Recent evidence from human lesion and functional neuroimaging studies have begun to challenge the notion that the amygdala is reserved for signals of threat (fear/anger). We performed a 4 T fMRI study in which 20 subjects viewed a contemporary set of photographs displaying 6 different facial expressions (fearful, disgusted, angry, sad, neutral, happy) while performing a task with minimal cognitive demand. Across subjects, the left amygdala was activated by each face condition separately, and its response was not selective for any particular emotion category. These results challenge the notion that the amygdala has a specialized role in processing certain emotions and suggest that the amygdala may have a more general-purpose function in processing salient information from faces.
Fitzgerald
Daniel A
DA
Department of Psychiatry, The University of Chicago, 5841 South Maryland Avenue MC3077 (L-466C), Chicago, IL 60637-1470, USA.
Angstadt
Mike
M
Jelsone
Laura M
LM
Nathan
Pradeep J
PJ
Phan
K Luan
KL
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D000786:Anger / Q000502:physiology; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
D010100:Oxygen