title: Subcortical amygdala pathways enable rapid face processing.
abstract: Human faces may signal relevant information and are therefore analysed rapidly and effectively by the brain. However, the precise mechanisms and pathways involved in rapid face processing are unclear. One view posits a role for a subcortical connection between early visual sensory regions and the amygdala, while an alternative account emphasises cortical mediation. To adjudicate between these functional architectures, we recorded magnetoencephalographic (MEG) evoked fields in human subjects to presentation of faces with varying emotional valence. Early brain activity was better explained by dynamic causal models containing a direct subcortical connection to the amygdala irrespective of emotional modulation. At longer latencies, models without a subcortical connection had comparable evidence. Hence, our results support the hypothesis that a subcortical pathway to the amygdala plays a role in rapid sensory processing of faces, in particular during early stimulus processing. This finding contributes to an understanding of the amygdala as a behavioural relevance detector.
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Mona M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Garvert
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Karl J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Friston
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Dolan
authors.affiliation: Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072 Brisbane, Australia; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function, Australia. Electronic address: m.garrido@uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Marta I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Garrido
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005829:Geniculate Bodies / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D020649:Pulvinar / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Amygdala; Connectivity; Dynamic causal modelling; MEG; Subcortical processing
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