Modulation of Amygdalar Activity by the Conscious Regulation of Negative Emotion

Schaefer, Stacey M.; Jackson, Daren C.; Davidson, Richard J.; Aguirre, Geoffrey K.; Kimberg, Daniel Y.; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L.

doi:10.1162/089892902760191135

Cited by 279 publications

(179 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Several recent studies have shown an important link between controlled processing and the inhibition or modulation of amygdala processing. For example, diverting attention (Pessoa et al, 2002), the activation of competing evaluative processes (Cunningham et al, 2003), maintaining an emotional response (Schaefer et al, 2002), or the controlled reappraisal of the stimulus (Ochsner et al, 2002) have been shown to modulate amygdala activity. Together, these data suggest that amygdala processes are specifically tuned for quick, automatic evaluation, and unless additional processes that intervene are recruited, such automatic processing will occur.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural components of social evaluation.

Cunningham

Johnson

Gatenby

et al. 2003

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

179

116

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Evaluative responses appear to involve 2 seemingly distinct sets of processes: those that are automatically activated and others that are more consciously controlled. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the authors investigated the brain systems associated with automatic and controlled evaluative processing. Participants made either evaluative (good-bad) or nonevaluative (past-present) judgments about famous names. Greater amygdala activity was observed for names rated as "bad" relative to those rated as "good," regardless of whether the task directly involved an evaluative judgment (good-bad) or not (past-present). Good-bad judgments resulted in greater medial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity than past-present judgments. Furthermore, there was greater ventrolateral PFC activity in good-bad judgments marked by greater ambivalence. Together, these findings indicate a neural distinction between processes engaged for automatic and controlled evaluation. Whereas automatic processes are sensitive to simple valence, controlled processes are sensitive to attitudinal complexity.Arguably, among the most important cognitive processes are those that are involved in people's evaluation of their physical and social environment, including objects, persons, and events. The seemingly ordinary act of assigning valence-good and bad-is crucial for survival, guiding behavior toward or away from a significant object in the immediate environment or in anticipation of future rewards and punishments in goal attainment. It is not surprising then, that the brain systems that underlie these processes have been of considerable interest (see LeDoux, 1996). Nevertheless, there remains much to be done to fully understand how various component processes work independently and together to produce complex and coherent social evaluations.To understand the affective and cognitive processes of evaluation, the present research brought together theory, research, and methods of social psychology and cognitive neuroscience to clarify the nature of social evaluation. Using functional neuroimaging to examine variation in brain activity as a function of perceiver intentions, the information processed, and the interaction between intention and information, we can begin to identify the distinct cognitive and affective processes that are involved in social evaluations. In particular, the present study used theoretical ideas and findings about attitude/evaluation and attitudinal ambivalence to investigate the neural mechanisms that give rise to them. Neuroimaging evidence provides convergent validity for theoretical constructs used to characterize social cognition, and also offers suggestions about the constraints on social cognitive models of evaluation. Conversely, the theoretical framework from social cognition is critical for interpreting neuroimaging data regarding social processes and for understanding and generating new hypotheses about brain function. The Social Cognition of EvaluationIn the past 2 decades, the use of indire...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural components of social evaluation.

Cunningham

Johnson

Gatenby

et al. 2003

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

179

116

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“…Perfusion data were analyzed as follows: Functional images were motion corrected by using SPM99. Time series of the perfusion-weighted images were obtained by pairwise ''surround'' subtraction between interleaved label and control pairs (50)(51)(52). The aCBF was calculated from the average perfusionweighted images for each condition.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural correlates of epigenesis

Canli

Qiu²,

Omura³

et al. 2006

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

294

251

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The effect of life stress on depression is moderated by a repeat length variation in the transcriptional control region of the serotonin transporter gene, which renders carriers of the short variant vulnerable for depression. We investigated the underlying neural mechanisms of these epigenetic processes in individuals with no history of psychopathology by using multimodal magnetic resonance-based imaging (functional, perfusion, and structural), genotyping, and self-reported life stress and rumination. Based on functional MRI and perfusion data, we found support for a model by which life stress interacts with the effect of serotonin transporter genotype on amygdala and hippocampal resting activation, two regions involved in depression and stress. Life stress also differentially affected, as a function of serotonin transporter genotype, functional connectivity of the amygdala and hippocampus with a wide network of other regions, as well as gray matter structural features, and affected individuals' level of rumination. These interactions may constitute a neural mechanism for epigenetic vulnerability toward, or protection against, depression.amygdala ͉ emotion ͉ environment ͉ gene ͉ hippocampus A dverse life events can reveal profound interindividual differences, rousing resilience in some and exposing susceptibility to mood disorders, including depression, in others. Diathesis-stress models have sought to explain these individual differences in terms of genetic predispositions interacting with environmental factors (1). Behavioral genetic studies have supported these models (2), with current work focusing on molecular and neural mechanism that may underlie these associations.Dysfunction of the serotonin (5-hydroxytryptophan, 5-HT) system is implicated in mood disorders, and variation within serotonergic genes has been associated with negative emotional traits such as neuroticism and harm avoidance (3). For example, higher scores in these traits are associated with a common short variant of a repetitive sequence in the transcriptional control region of the 5-HT transporter gene (5-HTT, SERT, SLC6A4), which results in low 5-HT uptake function (4). Two metaanalyses have concluded that presence of the short variant of this repeat (5-HTT-linked polymorphic region, 5-HTTLPR) is associated with higher levels of neuroticism or harm avoidance (5, 6). Although neuroticism itself is a risk factor for depression (7), the link between 5-HTTLPR genotype and depression has been more tenuous, suggesting that 5-HTTLPR genotype does not have a consistent main effect on depression but instead may be moderated through other variables (8).Caspi et al. (9) conducted a 23-year longitudinal study in a large sample of individuals who were genotyped for the 5-HTTLPR. They found that carriers of the 5-HTTLPR short variant showed more depressive symptoms, diagnosed depression, and suicidality as a function of stressful life events than individuals homozygous for the 5-HTTLPR long variant, thus demonstrating a significant gene-by-environment (...

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“…Nevertheless, the hippocampus is also differentially required for fear conditioning depending on the predictive value of the discrete CS (Marlin, 1981;Phillips and LeDoux, 1994;Desmedt et al, 2003). In addition, clinical studies indicate that having a hippocampaldependent episodic representation of the predictive value of CSs influences amygdala-based memories (Phelps et al, 2001;Oschner et al, 2002;Schaefer et al, 2002). These data, thus, suggest that the hippocampus could specifically influence the amygdalar function, thereby contributing to the selection of the most relevant information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extracellular Hippocampal Acetylcholine Level Controls Amygdala Function and Promotes Adaptive Conditioned Emotional Response

Calandreau¹,

Trifilieff²,

Mons³

et al. 2006

J. Neurosci.

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Ample data indicate that tone and contextual fear conditioning differentially require the amygdala and the hippocampus. However, mechanisms subserving the adaptive selection among environmental stimuli (discrete tone vs context) of those that best predict an aversive event are still elusive. Because the hippocampal cholinergic neurotransmission is thought to play a critical role in the coordination between different memory systems leading to the selection of appropriate behavioral strategies, we hypothesized that this cholinergic signal may control the competing acquisition of amygdala-mediated tone and contextual conditioning. Using pavlovian fear conditioning in mice, we first show a higher level of hippocampal acetylcholine release and a specific pattern of extracellular signalregulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) activation within the lateral (LA) and basolateral (BLA) amygdala under conditions in which the context is a better predictor than a discrete tone stimulus. Second, we demonstrate that levels of hippocampal cholinergic neurotransmission are causally related to the patterns of ERK1/2 activation in amygdala nuclei and actually determine the selection among the context or the simple tone the stimulus that best predicts the aversive event. Specifically, decreasing the hippocampal cholinergic signal not only impaired contextual conditioning but also mimicked conditioning to the discrete tone, both in terms of the behavioral outcome and the LA/BLA ERK1/2 activation pattern. Conversely, increasing this cholinergic signal not only disrupted tone conditioning but also promoted contextual fear conditioning. Hence, these findings highlight that hippocampal cholinergic neurotransmission controls amygdala function, thereby leading to the selection of relevant emotional information.

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Modulation of Amygdalar Activity by the Conscious Regulation of Negative Emotion

Cited by 279 publications

References 38 publications

Neural components of social evaluation.

Neural components of social evaluation.

Neural correlates of epigenesis

Extracellular Hippocampal Acetylcholine Level Controls Amygdala Function and Promotes Adaptive Conditioned Emotional Response

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