Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 2010 Oct;48(12):3430-5. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.07.009. Epub 2010 Jul 14.
Previous research has indicated that the amygdala is a critical neural substrate of the emotional modulation of attention. However, a recent case study suggests that the amygdala may not be essential for all types of emotion-attention interactions. In order to test this hypothesis, we assessed the visual-search performance of patients with unilateral amygdala lesions, matched controls, and medication-matched epilepsy patients with intact amygdalae. All participants completed a visual-search task consisting of trials in which (1) an emotional target was embedded among neutral distractors, (2) a neutral target was embedded among emotional distractors, or (3) a neutral target was embedded among neutral distractors. All participant groups, including those with amygdala lesions, detected emotional targets more efficiently than neutral targets. These data indicate that the amygdala is not necessary for emotion-guided visual search and suggest that other mechanisms beyond the amygdala help guide attention toward threatening stimuli.
先前的研究表明,杏仁核是情绪调节注意的关键神经基质。然而,最近的一项案例研究表明,杏仁核对于所有类型的情绪-注意相互作用并非必不可少。为了验证这一假设,我们评估了单侧杏仁核损伤患者、匹配对照组和杏仁核完整的药物匹配癫痫患者的视觉搜索表现。所有参与者都完成了一项视觉搜索任务,其中包括(1)在中性干扰中嵌入情绪目标,(2)在情绪干扰中嵌入中性目标,或(3)在中性干扰中嵌入中性目标。所有参与者群体,包括那些杏仁核损伤的患者,都比中性目标更有效地检测到情绪目标。这些数据表明,杏仁核对于情绪引导的视觉搜索并非必需,并表明除了杏仁核之外的其他机制有助于将注意力引导到威胁性刺激。