Institute of Neuroscience, Medical School, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.
J Neurosci. 2012 Oct 10;32(41):14184-92. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1759-12.2012.
This study addresses the neuronal representation of aversive sounds that are perceived as unpleasant. Functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans demonstrated responses in the amygdala and auditory cortex to aversive sounds. We show that the amygdala encodes both the acoustic features of a stimulus and its valence (perceived unpleasantness). Dynamic causal modeling of this system revealed that evoked responses to sounds are relayed to the amygdala via auditory cortex. While acoustic features modulate effective connectivity from auditory cortex to the amygdala, the valence modulates the effective connectivity from amygdala to the auditory cortex. These results support a complex (recurrent) interaction between the auditory cortex and amygdala based on object-level analysis in the auditory cortex that portends the assignment of emotional valence in amygdala that in turn influences the representation of salient information in auditory cortex.
这项研究探讨了人类对被视为不愉快的厌恶声音的神经元表示。功能磁共振成像在人类中显示出杏仁核和听觉皮层对厌恶声音的反应。我们表明，杏仁核既编码刺激的声学特征，也编码其效价（感知的不愉快）。对该系统的动态因果建模表明，对声音的诱发反应通过听觉皮层传递到杏仁核。虽然声学特征调节了从听觉皮层到杏仁核的有效连接，但效价调节了从杏仁核到听觉皮层的有效连接。这些结果支持了基于听觉皮层的对象水平分析的听觉皮层和杏仁核之间复杂（递归）相互作用的假设，这预示着杏仁核中情感效价的分配，进而影响了听觉皮层中显著信息的表示。
