Brain Activation during Facial Emotion Processing

Gur, Ruben C.; Schroeder, Lee F.; Turner, Travis H.; McGrath, Claire; Chan, Robin M.; Turetsky, Bruce I.; Alsop, David C.; Maldjian, Joseph A.; Gur, Raquel E.

doi:10.1006/nimg.2002.1097

Cited by 295 publications

(203 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…These results are in agreement with a number of previous studies using a similar paradigm. Specifically, although in some studies predominantly right-sided responses were observed, irrespective of emotion (Gur et al, 2002), in others bilateral amygdala responses were found across stimulus conditions (Britton et al, 2006;Fitzgerald et al, 2006;Yang et al, 2002), similar to the present study.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Amygdala responses to emotional faces in twins discordant or concordant for the risk for anxiety and depression

et al. 2008

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Background: Functional brain imaging studies have shown deviant amygdala responses to emotional stimuli in subjects suffering from anxiety and depressive disorder, but both hyperactivity and hypoactivity compared to healthy controls have been reported. To account for these discrepant findings, we hypothesize that genetic and environmental risk factors differently impact on amygdala functioning. Methods: To test this hypothesis, we assessed amygdala responses to an emotional faces paradigm during functional magnetic resonance imaging in monozygotic twin pairs discordant for the risk of anxiety and depression (n = 10 pairs) and in monozygotic twin pairs concordant for high (n = 7 pairs) or low (n = 15 pairs) risk for anxiety and depression. Results: Main effects (all faces vs. baseline) revealed robust bilateral amygdala activity across groups. In discordant twins, increased amygdala responses were found for negatively valenced stimuli (angry/anxious faces) in high-risk twins compared to their low-risk co-twins. In contrast, concordant high-risk pairs revealed blunted amygdala reactivity to both positive and negative faces compared with concordant low-risk pairs. Post-hoc analyses showed that these findings were independent of 5-HTTLPR genotype. Conclusions: Our findings indicate amygdala hyperactivity in subjects who are at high risk for anxiety and depression through environmental factors and amygdala hypoactivity in those at risk mainly through genetic factors. We suggest that this result reflects a difference in baseline amygdala activation in these groups. Future imaging studies on anxiety and depression should aim to avoid admixture of subjects who are at genetic risk with those at risk due to environmental factors.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Amygdala responses to emotional faces in twins discordant or concordant for the risk for anxiety and depression

et al. 2008

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“…Similar findings have been reported in the amygdala during attentional studies of fearful facial expressions [3,56]. However, other research suggests that amygdalar processing of facial expressions is enhanced when the emotion is taskrelevant [18,19] or under conditions of high attentional load [45]. Still other studies have shown enhancement of amygdala responses under passive, subliminal, or unattended processing conditions ([3]-disgust expression, [40,54]).…”

Section: Ventral Regionssupporting

confidence: 78%

Emotion–attention network interactions during a visual oddball task

Fichtenholtz

Dean

Dillon

et al. 2004

Cognitive Brain Research

141

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Emotional and attentional functions are known to be distributed along ventral and dorsal networks in the brain, respectively. However, the interactions between these systems remain to be specified. The present study used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how attentional focus can modulate the neural activity elicited by scenes that vary in emotional content. In a visual oddball task, aversive and neutral scenes were presented intermittently among circles and squares. The squares were frequent standard events, whereas the other novel stimulus categories occurred rarely. One experimental group [N = 10] was instructed to count the circles, whereas another group [N = 12] counted the emotional scenes. A main effect of emotion was found in the amygdala (AMG) and ventral frontotemporal cortices. In these regions, activation was significantly greater for emotional than neutral stimuli but was invariant to attentional focus. A main effect of attentional focus was found in dorsal frontoparietal cortices, whose activity signaled task-relevant target events irrespective of emotional content. The only brain region that was sensitive to both emotion and attentional focus was the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG). When circles were task-relevant, the ACG responded equally to circle targets and distracting emotional scenes. The ACG response to emotional scenes increased when they were task-relevant, and the response to circles concomitantly decreased. These findings support and extend prominent network theories of emotion -attention interactions that highlight the integrative role played by the anterior cingulate. D

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“…It is also possible that the amygdalar response in the current study was altered following the training period (see Methods). A previous study reported a shifting response from right to left amygdala during repeated viewing of emotional faces (Gur et al, 2002), which the authors suggested reflected a shift towards more cognitive processing of stimuli. Furthermore, training in emotional evaluation increases the likelihood that an individual will spontaneously evaluate stimuli (Li et al, 2007, in preparation).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Dissociated responses in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex to bottom–up and top–down components of emotional evaluation

et al. 2008

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Although emotional responses to stimuli may be automatic, explicit evaluation of emotion is a voluntary act. These bottom-up and top-down processes may be supported by distinct neural systems. Previous studies reported bottom-up responses in the amygdala, top-down responses in the orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortices, and top-down modulation of the amygdalar response. The current study used event-related fMRI on fifteen healthy males to examine these responses in the absence of stimulus anticipation or task repetition. Factorial analysis distinguished bottom-up responses in the amygdala from top-down responses in the orbitofrontal cortex. Activation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex and modulation of amygdalar response were not observed, and future studies may investigate whether these effects are contingent upon anticipation or cognitive set. KeywordsAffect; fMRI; event-related; factorial; anticipation The ability to evaluate our feelings is essential to normal emotional function. Although emotional responses to stimuli may be automatic, explicit evaluation of emotion is a voluntary act. Accordingly, the bottom-up 1 , or stimulus-driven, and top-down, or task-driven, components of emotional evaluation may be mediated by different neural systems. Studies of emotional evaluation using fMRI have associated bottom-up processing with the amygdala and top-down processing with the orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortices. Furthermore, some studies reported modulation of the amygdala response under different task conditions, representing top-down modulation of bottom-up processing. However, technical issues with many of these studies (use of blocked designs, which confound responses to stimuli with Corresponding author: Paul Wright, Centre for Speech, Language, and the Brain, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK, Tel: +44 1223 766454, Fax: +44 1223 766452, Email: paul@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. 1 Generation of emotional responses to stimuli may require associative processing determined by the individual's experience and therefore may include "top-down" components, but for brevity, we refer to neural responses that correlate with changes in stimulus content as "bottom-up". anticipation, and varying baseline controls tasks) render interpretation somewhat ambiguous. Therefore, the current study uses an optimized event-related emotional evaluation paradigm to attempt to locate distinct and interacting neural responses to the bottom-up and top-down componen...

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Brain Activation during Facial Emotion Processing

Cited by 295 publications

References 55 publications

Amygdala responses to emotional faces in twins discordant or concordant for the risk for anxiety and depression

Amygdala responses to emotional faces in twins discordant or concordant for the risk for anxiety and depression

Emotion–attention network interactions during a visual oddball task

Dissociated responses in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex to bottom–up and top–down components of emotional evaluation

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