A preliminary study of increased amygdala activation to positive affective stimuli in mania

Bermpohl, Felix; Dalanay, Umut; Kahnt, Thorsten; Sajonz, Bastian; Heimann, Hannah; Ricken, Roland; Stoy, Meline; Hägele, Claudia; Schlagenhauf, Florian; Adli, Mazda; Wrase, Jana; Ströhle, Andreas; Heinz, Andreas; Bauer, Michael

doi:10.1111/j.1399-5618.2008.00648.x

Cited by 67 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…This finding is consistent with the increased perception of BD to attentional allocation of negative rather than to positive emotional cues [16]. Although some studies in non-euthymic BD (manic) have shown positive bias [55], others have demonstrated attentional biases toward negative valence stimuli in depressed BD patients employing non-facial emotion processing tasks [56]. Furthermore, enhanced recognition of negative facial expressions has been reported in euthymic BD [7], [57].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Neural Processing of Emotional Facial and Semantic Expressions in Euthymic Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Its Association with Theory of Mind (ToM)

et al. 2012

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BackgroundAdults with bipolar disorder (BD) have cognitive impairments that affect face processing and social cognition. However, it remains unknown whether these deficits in euthymic BD have impaired brain markers of emotional processing.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe recruited twenty six participants, 13 controls subjects with an equal number of euthymic BD participants. We used an event-related potential (ERP) assessment of a dual valence task (DVT), in which faces (angry and happy), words (pleasant and unpleasant), and face-word simultaneous combinations are presented to test the effects of the stimulus type (face vs word) and valence (positive vs. negative). All participants received clinical, neuropsychological and social cognition evaluations. ERP analysis revealed that both groups showed N170 modulation of stimulus type effects (face > word). BD patients exhibited reduced and enhanced N170 to facial and semantic valence, respectively. The neural source estimation of N170 was a posterior section of the fusiform gyrus (FG), including the face fusiform area (FFA). Neural generators of N170 for faces (FG and FFA) were reduced in BD. In these patients, N170 modulation was associated with social cognition (theory of mind).Conclusions/SignificanceThis is the first report of euthymic BD exhibiting abnormal N170 emotional discrimination associated with theory of mind impairments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Neural Processing of Emotional Facial and Semantic Expressions in Euthymic Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Its Association with Theory of Mind (ToM)

et al. 2012

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“…We predicted that bipolar subjects would exhibit abnormal activation within the ventrolateral prefrontal-amygdala emotional pathway, including decreased ventrolateral prefrontal activation consistent with prior studies and a model of decreased prefrontal modulation of limbic brain in mania (3, 10–14). To test this prediction, we performed a region of interest (ROI) analysis based on this pathway.…”

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confidence: 69%

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Brain Activation in Bipolar Mania: Evidence for Disruption of the Ventrolateral Prefrontal-Amygdala Emotional Pathway

Strakowski¹,

Eliassen²,

Lamy³

et al. 2011

Biological Psychiatry

133

112

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Background Bipolar I disorder is defined by the occurrence of mania. The presence of mania, coupled with a course of illness characterized by waxing and waning of affective symptoms, suggests that bipolar disorder arises from dysfunction of neural systems that maintain emotional arousal and homeostasis. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study manic bipolar subjects as they performed a cognitive task designed to examine the ventrolateral prefrontal emotional arousal network. Methods We used fMRI to study regional brain activation in 40 DSM-IV manic bipolar I patients and 36 healthy subjects while they performed a continuous performance task with emotional and neutral distracters. Event-related region-of-interest analyses were performed to test the primary hypothesis. Voxelwise analyses were also completed. Results Compared with healthy subjects, the manic subjects exhibited blunted activation to emotional and neutral images, but not targets, across most of the predefined regions of interest. Several additional brain regions identified in the voxelwise analysis also exhibited similar differences between groups, including right parahippocampus, right lingual gyrus, and medial thalamus. In addition to these primary findings, the manic subjects also exhibited increased activation in response to targets in number of brain regions that were primarily associated with managing affective stimuli. Group differences did not appear to be secondary to medication exposure or other confounds. Conclusions Bipolar manic subjects exhibit blunted brain fMRI response to emotional cues throughout the ventrolateral prefrontal emotional arousal network. Disruption of this emotional network may contribute to the mood dysregulation of bipolar disorder.

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“…During fMRI participants viewed standardized photographs taken from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) [32] as previously described [38], [39]. The IAPS is an established stimulus set to elicit emotional responses.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hemispheric Asymmetry for Affective Stimulus Processing in Healthy Subjects–A fMRI Study

et al. 2012

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BackgroundWhile hemispheric specialization of language processing is well established, lateralization of emotion processing is still under debate. Several conflicting hypotheses have been proposed, including right hemisphere hypothesis, valence asymmetry hypothesis and region-specific lateralization hypothesis. However, experimental evidence for these hypotheses remains inconclusive, partly because direct comparisons between hemispheres are scarce.MethodsThe present fMRI study systematically investigated functional lateralization during affective stimulus processing in 36 healthy participants. We normalized our functional data on a symmetrical template to avoid confounding effects of anatomical asymmetries. Direct comparison of BOLD responses between hemispheres was accomplished taking two approaches: a hypothesis-driven region of interest analysis focusing on brain areas most frequently reported in earlier neuroimaging studies of emotion; and an exploratory whole volume analysis contrasting non-flipped with flipped functional data using paired t-test.ResultsThe region of interest analysis revealed lateralization towards the left in the medial prefrontal cortex (BA 10) during positive stimulus processing; while negative stimulus processing was lateralized towards the right in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9 & 46) and towards the left in the amygdala and uncus. The whole brain analysis yielded similar results and, in addition, revealed lateralization towards the right in the premotor cortex (BA 6) and the temporo-occipital junction (BA 19 & 37) during positive stimulus processing; while negative stimulus processing showed lateralization towards the right in the temporo-parietal junction (BA 37,39,42) and towards the left in the middle temporal gyrus (BA 21).ConclusionOur data suggests region-specific functional lateralization of emotion processing. Findings show valence asymmetry for prefrontal cortical areas and left-lateralized negative stimulus processing in subcortical areas, in particular, amygdala and uncus.

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A preliminary study of increased amygdala activation to positive affective stimuli in mania

Cited by 67 publications

References 39 publications

Neural Processing of Emotional Facial and Semantic Expressions in Euthymic Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Its Association with Theory of Mind (ToM)

Neural Processing of Emotional Facial and Semantic Expressions in Euthymic Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Its Association with Theory of Mind (ToM)

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Brain Activation in Bipolar Mania: Evidence for Disruption of the Ventrolateral Prefrontal-Amygdala Emotional Pathway

Hemispheric Asymmetry for Affective Stimulus Processing in Healthy Subjects–A fMRI Study

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