Hariri Ahmad R, Tessitore Alessandro, Mattay Venkata S, Fera Francesco, Weinberger Daniel R
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
Neuroimage. 2002 Sep;17(1):317-23. doi: 10.1006/nimg.2002.1179.
As a central fear processor of the brain, the amygdala initiates a cascade of critical physiological and behavioral responses. Neuroimaging studies have shown that the human amygdala responds not only to fearful and angry facial expressions but also to fearful and threatening scenes such as attacks, explosions, and mutilations. Given the relative importance of facial expressions in adaptive social behavior, we hypothesized that the human amygdala would exhibit a stronger response to angry and fearful facial expressions in comparison to other fearful and threatening stimuli. Twelve subjects completed two tasks while undergoing fMRI: matching angry or fearful facial expressions, and matching scenes depicting fearful or threatening situations derived from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). While there was an amygdala response to both facial expressions and IAPS stimuli, direct comparison revealed that the amygdala response to facial expressions was significantly greater than that to IAPS stimuli. Autonomic reactivity, measured by skin conductance responses, was also greater to facial expressions. These results suggest that the human amygdala shows a stronger response to affective facial expressions than to scenes, a bias that should be considered in the design of experimental paradigms interested in probing amygdala function.
作为大脑的核心恐惧处理器，杏仁核引发一系列关键的生理和行为反应。神经影像学研究表明，人类杏仁核不仅对面部恐惧和愤怒表情有反应，还对诸如攻击、爆炸和残害等恐惧和威胁场景有反应。鉴于面部表情在适应性社会行为中的相对重要性，我们推测，与其他恐惧和威胁性刺激相比，人类杏仁核对面部愤怒和恐惧表情会表现出更强的反应。12名受试者在接受功能磁共振成像（fMRI）时完成了两项任务：匹配愤怒或恐惧面部表情，以及匹配描绘源自国际情感图片系统（IAPS）的恐惧或威胁情境的场景。虽然杏仁核对面部表情和IAPS刺激均有反应，但直接比较显示，杏仁核对面部表情的反应明显大于对IAPS刺激的反应。通过皮肤电反应测量的自主反应性对面部表情也更强。这些结果表明，人类杏仁核对情感面部表情的反应比对场景的反应更强，在设计旨在探究杏仁核功能的实验范式时应考虑到这种偏向。
