Berman Laboratory for Learning and Memory, Center for BrainHealth, The University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, Texas 75235, USA.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2013 Aug;34(8):1946-55. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22039. Epub 2012 Mar 25.
Threatening stimuli have been found to modulate visual processes related to perception and attention. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated whether threat modulates visual object recognition of man-made and naturally occurring categories of stimuli. Compared with nonthreatening pictures, threatening pictures of real items elicited larger fMRI BOLD signal changes in medial visual cortices extending inferiorly into the temporo-occipital (TO) "what" pathways. This region elicited greater signal changes for threatening items compared to nonthreatening from both the natural-occurring and man-made stimulus supraordinate categories, demonstrating a featural component to these visual processing areas. Two additional loci of signal changes within more lateral inferior TO areas (bilateral BA18 and 19 as well as the right ventral temporal lobe) were detected for a category-feature interaction, with stronger responses to man-made (category) threatening (feature) stimuli than to natural threats. The findings are discussed in terms of visual recognition of processing efficiently or rapidly groups of items that confer an advantage for survival.
威胁性刺激已被发现可调节与感知和注意相关的视觉过程。本项功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究旨在调查威胁是否会调节对人为和自然发生类别的刺激的视觉物体识别。与非威胁性图片相比，真实物品的威胁性图片在延伸到颞枕部（TO）“什么”通路的内侧视觉皮质中引起更大的 fMRI BOLD 信号变化。与非威胁性刺激相比，该区域对威胁性物品的信号变化更大，这表明这些视觉处理区域具有特征成分。在更外侧的下 TO 区域内还检测到两个信号变化的附加位置（双侧 BA18 和 19 以及右侧腹侧颞叶），这与类别-特征相互作用有关，对人为（类别）威胁（特征）刺激的反应强于对自然威胁的反应。研究结果讨论了处理有利于生存的物品组的视觉识别的效率或快速性。
