title: Emotional automaticity is a matter of timing.
abstract: There has been a long controversy concerning whether the amygdala's response to emotional stimuli is automatic or dependent on attentional load. Using magnoencephalography and an advanced beamformer source localization technique, we found that amygdala automaticity was a function of time: while early amygdala responding to emotional stimuli (40-140 ms) was unaffected by attentional load, later amygdala response (280-410 ms), subsequent to frontoparietal cortex activity, was modulated by attentional load.
authors.affiliation: Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA. luoj@mail.nih.gov
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Holroyd
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Majestic
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schechter
authors.forename: R James
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Blair
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013997:Time Factors; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult