Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2010 Mar;16(2):383-7. doi: 10.1017/S1355617709991172. Epub 2009 Dec 4.
The amygdala has a key role in automatic non-conscious processing of emotions. Highly salient emotional stimuli elicit amygdala activity, and happy faces are among the most rapidly perceived facial expressions. In backward masking paradigms, an image is presented briefly and then masked by another stimulus. However, reports of amygdala responses to masked happy faces have been mixed. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine amygdala activation to masked happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions. Masked happy faces elicited greater amygdala activation bilaterally as compared to masked sad faces. Our findings indicate that the amygdala is highly responsive to non-consciously perceived happy facial expressions.
杏仁核在情绪的自动非意识处理中起着关键作用。高度显著的情绪刺激会引起杏仁核活动，而快乐的面孔是最快被感知到的面部表情之一。在反向掩蔽范式中，图像会短暂呈现，然后被另一个刺激掩蔽。然而，关于杏仁核对掩蔽快乐面孔反应的报告却不一致。在本研究中，我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来检查杏仁核对掩蔽快乐、悲伤和中性面部表情的激活。与掩蔽悲伤的面孔相比，掩蔽快乐的面孔会引起双侧杏仁核更大的激活。我们的发现表明，杏仁核对非意识感知到的快乐面部表情反应非常敏感。
