title: A category-specific response to animals in the right human amygdala.
abstract: The amygdala is important in emotion, but it remains unknown whether it is specialized for certain stimulus categories. We analyzed responses recorded from 489 single neurons in the amygdalae of 41 neurosurgical patients and found a categorical selectivity for pictures of animals in the right amygdala. This selectivity appeared to be independent of emotional valence or arousal and may reflect the importance that animals held throughout our evolutionary past.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA. fmormann@yahoo.de
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mormann
authors.forename: Julien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dubois
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kornblith
authors.forename: Milica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Milosavljevic
authors.forename: Moran
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cerf
authors.forename: Matias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ison
authors.forename: Naotsugu
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tsuchiya
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kraskov
authors.forename: Rodrigo Quian
authors.initials: RQ
authors.lastname: Quiroga
authors.forename: Ralph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Adolphs
authors.forename: Itzhak
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Fried
authors.forename: Christof
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Koch
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000473:pathology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012372:ROC Curve; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult