title: The role of human basolateral amygdala in ambiguous social threat perception.
abstract: Previous studies have shown that the amygdala (AMG) plays a role in how affective signals are processed. Animal research has allowed this role to be better understood and has assigned to the basolateral amygdala (BLA) an important role in threat perception. Here we show that, when passively exposed to bodily threat signals during a facial expressions recognition task, humans with bilateral BLA damage but with a functional central-medial amygdala (CMA) have a profound deficit in ignoring task-irrelevant bodily threat signals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands; Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, Tilburg University, The Netherlands; Brain and Emotion Laboratory Leuven, Department of Neurosciences, Leuven University, Belgium. Electronic address: b.degelder@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: de Gelder
authors.affiliation: Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Terburg
authors.affiliation: MRC Medical Imaging Research Unit, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
authors.forename: Barak
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Morgan
authors.affiliation: Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, Tilburg University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ruud
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hortensius
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
authors.forename: Dan J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Stein
authors.affiliation: Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
authors.forename: Jack
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van Honk
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Amygdala; Basolateral amygdala; Body emotion expressions; Emotion; Urbach–Wiethe disease