title: A face versus non-face context influences amygdala responses to masked fearful eye whites.
abstract: The structure of the mask stimulus is crucial in backward masking studies and we recently demonstrated such an effect when masking faces. Specifically, we showed that activity of the amygdala is increased to fearful facial expressions masked with neutral faces and decreased to fearful expressions masked with a pattern mask-but critically both masked conditions discriminated fearful expressions from happy expressions. Given this finding, we sought to test whether masked fearful eye whites would produce a similar profile of amygdala response in a face vs non-face context. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning sessions, 30 participants viewed fearful or happy eye whites masked with either neutral faces or pattern images. Results indicated amygdala activity was increased to fearful vs happy eye whites in the face mask condition, but decreased to fearful vs happy eye whites in the pattern mask condition-effectively replicating and expanding our previous report. Our data support the idea that the amygdala is responsive to fearful eye whites, but that the nature of this activity observed in a backward masking design depends on the mask stimulus.
authors: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
authors: M Justin
authors: MJ
authors: Kim
authors: Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
authors: Kimberly M
authors: KM
authors: Solomon
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
authors: Maital
authors: M
authors: Neta
authors: Cognitive Science, US Army Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC), Natick, MA 01760, USA.
authors: F Caroline
authors: FC
authors: Davis
authors: Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI 53719, USA.
authors: Jonathan A
authors: JA
authors: Oler
authors: Behavior Therapy and Psychotherapy Center, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA.
authors: Emily C
authors: EC
authors: Mazzulla
authors: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA paul.j.whalen@dartmouth.edu.
authors: Paul J
authors: PJ
authors: Whalen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000679:Amygdala / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000502:physiology; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: amygdala; backward masking; eyes; fMRI; fear