Sauer Andreas, Mothes-Lasch Martin, Miltner Wolfgang H R, Straube Thomas
Department of Neurophysiology, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany, and Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, GermanyDepartment of Neurophysiology, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany, and Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany
Department of Neurophysiology, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany, and Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2014 Aug;9(8):1246-52. doi: 10.1093/scan/nst100. Epub 2013 Aug 14.
There is increasing evidence for a role of the amygdala in processing gaze direction and emotional relevance of faces. In this event-related functional magnetic resonance study we investigated amygdala responses while we orthogonally manipulated head direction, gaze direction and facial expression (angry, happy and neutral). This allowed us to investigate effects of stimulus ambiguity, low-level factors and non-emotional factors on amygdala activation. Averted vs direct gaze induced increased activation in the right dorsal amygdala regardless of facial expression and head orientation. Furthermore, valence effects were found in the ventral amygdala and strongly dependent on head orientation. We observed enhanced activation to angry and neutral vs happy faces for observer-directed faces in the left ventral amygdala while the averted head condition reversed this pattern resulting in increased activation to happy as compared to angry and neutral faces. These results suggest that gaze direction drives specifically dorsal amygdala activation regardless of facial expression, low-level perceptual factors or stimulus ambiguity. The role of the amygdala is thus not restricted to the detection of potential threat, but has a more general role in attention processes. Furthermore, valence effects are associated with activation of the ventral amygdala and strongly influenced by non-emotional factors.
越来越多的证据表明杏仁核在处理面部的注视方向和情感相关性方面发挥作用。在这项事件相关功能磁共振研究中，我们在正交操纵头部方向、注视方向和面部表情（愤怒、快乐和中性）的同时，研究了杏仁核的反应。这使我们能够研究刺激模糊性、低水平因素和非情感因素对杏仁核激活的影响。无论面部表情和头部方向如何，回避注视与直接注视相比，右侧背侧杏仁核的激活增加。此外，在腹侧杏仁核中发现了效价效应，且该效应强烈依赖于头部方向。我们观察到，对于观察者直视的面部，左侧腹侧杏仁核对愤怒和中性面部的激活增强，而在回避头部的情况下，这种模式发生逆转，与愤怒和中性面部相比，对快乐面部的激活增加。这些结果表明，无论面部表情、低水平感知因素或刺激模糊性如何，注视方向都能特异性地驱动背侧杏仁核的激活。因此，杏仁核的作用不仅限于检测潜在威胁，还在注意力过程中发挥更广泛的作用。此外，效价效应与腹侧杏仁核的激活相关，且受到非情感因素的强烈影响。
