Neuroscience literature increasingly suggests a conceptual self composed of interacting neural regions, rather than independent local activations, yet such claims have yet to be investigated. We, thus, combined task-dependent meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM) with task-independent resting-state (RS) connectivity analysis to delineate the neural network of the self, across both states. Given psychological evidence implicating the self’s interdependence on social information, we also delineated the neural network underlying conceptual other-processing. To elucidate the relation between the self-/other-networks and their function, we mined the MACM metadata to generate a cognitive–behavioral profile for an empirically identified region specific to conceptual self, the pregenual anterior cingulate (pACC), and conceptual other, posterior cingulate/precuneus (PCC/PC). Mining of 7,200 published, task-dependent, neuroimaging studies, using healthy human subjects, yielded 193 studies activating the self-related seed and were conjoined with RS connectivity analysis to delineate a differentiated self-network composed of the pACC (seed) and anterior insula, relative to other functional connectivity. Additionally, 106 studies activating the other-related seed were conjoined with RS connectivity analysis to delineate a differentiated other-network of PCC/PC (seed) and angular gyrus/temporoparietal junction, relative to self-functional connectivity. The self-network seed related to emotional conflict resolution and motivational processing, whereas the other-network seed related to socially oriented processing and contextual information integration. Notably, our findings revealed shared RS connectivity between ensuing self-/other-networks within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and medial orbitofrontal cortex, suggesting self-updating via integration of self-relevant social information. We, therefore, present initial neurobiological evidence corroborating the increasing claims of an intricate self-network, the architecture of which may promote social value processing.
t r a c tThe amygdala is suggested to serve as a key structure in the emotional brain, implicated in diverse affective processes. Still, the bulk of existing neuroscientific investigations of the amygdala relies on conventional neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI, which are very useful but subject to limitations. These limitations are particular to their temporal resolution, but also to their spatial precision at a very fine-grained level. Here, we review studies investigating the functional profile of the human amygdala using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG), an invasive technique with high temporal and spatial precision. We conducted a systematic literature review of 47 iEEG studies investigating the human amygdala, and we focus on two content-related domains and one process-related domain: (1) memory formation and retrieval; (2) affective processing; and (3) latency components. This review reveals the human amygdala to engage in invariant semantic encoding and recognition of specific objects and individuals, independent of context or visuospatial attributes, and to discriminate between familiar and novel stimuli. The review highlights the amygdala's role in emotion processing witnessed in differential treatment of social-affective facial cues, differential neuronal firing to relevant novel stimuli, and habituation to familiar affective stimuli. Overall, the review suggests the amygdala plays a key role in the processing of affective relevance. Finally, this review delineates effects on amygdala neuronal activity into three time latency windows (post-stimulus onset). The early window (~50e290 msec) subsumes effects respective to exogenous stimulus-driven affective processing of faces and emotion. The intermediate window (~270e470 msec) comprises effects related to explicit attention to novel task-relevant stimuli, irrespective of sensory modality. The late window (~600e1400 msec) subsumes effects from tasks soliciting semantic associations and working memory during affective processing. We juxtapose these iEEG data with current clinical topics relevant to amygdala activation and propose avenues for future investigation of the amygdala using iEEG methods.© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.* Corresponding author. Campus Biotech, CISA e University of Geneva, Case Postale 60, CH e 1211 Gen eve 20, Switzerland. E-mail address: ryan.murray@unige.ch (R.J. Murray).Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirectJournal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cortex c o r t e x 6 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 1 0 e3 3 http://dx
it has been proposed that the human amygdala may not only encode the emotional value of sensory events, but more generally mediate the appraisal of their relevance for the individual's goals, including relevance for action or task-based needs. However, emotional and non-emotional/action-relevance might drive amygdala activity through distinct neural signals, and the relative timing of both kinds of responses remains undetermined. Here, we recorded intracranial event-related potentials from nine amygdalae of patients undergoing epilepsy surgery, while they performed variants of a Go/NoGo task with faces and abstract shapes, where emotion-and action-relevance were orthogonally manipulated. Our results revealed early amygdala responses to emotion facial expressions starting ~ 130 ms after stimulus-onset. Importantly, the amygdala responded to action-relevance not only with face stimuli but also with abstract shapes (squares), and these relevance effects consistently occurred in later time-windows (starting ~ 220 ms) for both faces and squares. A similar dissociation was observed in gamma activity. Furthermore, whereas emotional responses habituated over time, the actionrelevance effect increased during the course of the experiment, suggesting progressive learning based on the task needs. Our results support the hypothesis that the human amygdala mediates a broader relevance appraisal function, with the processing of emotion-relevance preceding temporally that of action-relevance. The amygdala is a crucial component of brain circuits allowing swift reaction to threatening stimuli, an ability critical for adaptive behavior and survival 1,2. Fast and efficient discrimination of potentially harmful events is a hallmark of the fear response, associated with a well-established sensitivity of the amygdala to threat information, and extensive connectivity with multiple other brain regions that act to facilitate attention, enhance memory, and promote actions 3. It has recently been questioned, however, whether the amygdala is dedicated to fear processing 1 or whether instead it may serve a broader function for the appraisal of behaviorally relevant events (see 4 for a review). There is abundant evidence that the human amygdala responds to other emotionally significant stimuli beyond threat 5 , including positive or reward information 6,7 , but also novelty 8 and non-emotional salient stimuli with personal impact or goal-related significance 9,10. This diversity of response patterns has led to recent theoretical accounts proposing that the amygdala may actually encode the "relevance" of events, which is determined by the goals,
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