Neuroscience of Emotion and Affective Dynamics (NEAD) Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Cortex. 2013 May;49(5):1394-403. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2012.08.003. Epub 2012 Aug 9.
Emotional states can influence the human voice during speech utterances. Here, we tested the sensitivity and signal adaptation of functional activity located in amygdala subregions to threatening voices during high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging. Bilateral superficial (SF) complex and the right laterobasal (LB) complex of the amygdala were generally sensitive to emotional cues from speech prosody. Activity was stronger, however, when listeners directly focused on the emotional prosody of the voice instead of attending to a nonemotional feature. Explicit attention to prosody especially elicited activity in the right LB complex. Furthermore, the right SF specifically showed an effect of sensitization indicated by a significant signal increase in response to emotional voices which were preceded by neutral events. The bilateral SF showed signal habituation to repeated emotional voices indicated by a significant signal decrease for an emotional event preceded by another emotional event. The right SF and LB finally showed an effect of desensitization after the processing of emotional voices indicated by a signal decrease for neutral events that followed emotional events. Thus, different amygdala subregions are sensitive to threatening emotional voices, and their activity depends on the attentional focus as well as on the proximal temporal context of other neutral and emotional events.
情绪状态会影响人类在言语表达时的声音。在这里，我们在高分辨率功能磁共振成像中测试了杏仁核亚区对威胁性语音的功能活动的敏感性和信号适应。双侧浅层复合体（SF）和右侧基底外侧复合体（LB）通常对语音韵律的情绪线索敏感。然而，当听众直接关注语音的情绪韵律而不是关注非情绪特征时，活动会更强。对韵律的明确关注尤其会引起右侧 LB 复合体的活动。此外，右侧 SF 特别表现出敏感化的效应，表现为对紧随中性事件的情绪声音的反应信号显著增加。双侧 SF 对重复的情绪声音表现出信号习惯化的效应，表现为紧随另一个情绪事件的情绪事件的信号显著降低。最后，右侧 SF 和 LB 在处理情绪声音后表现出脱敏效应，表现为紧随情绪事件的中性事件的信号降低。因此，不同的杏仁核亚区对威胁性情绪声音敏感，其活动取决于注意力焦点以及其他中性和情绪事件的近端时间上下文。
