Responses of Single Neurons in Monkey Amygdala to Facial and Vocal Emotions

Kuraoka, Koji; Nakamura, Katsuki

doi:10.1152/jn.00464.2006

Cited by 110 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This interpretation would be similar to forward models of the motor system where information about the produced movement is analyzed to produce predictions about the outcome (44,45). In the current case, the outcome might be social responses of a peer, and this information, which was shown to reside in the same circuits (6,(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33), can be integrated to form a more complete interpretation of the social scene. Our finding that facial movement and social stimuli converge on single neurons in the amygdala and the dACC is in line with this suggestion and suggests a possible mechanism for how social context may shape decoding and the reciprocal response to social scenes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Self-monitoring of social facial expressions in the primate amygdala and cingulate cortex

Livneh

Resnik

Shohat

et al. 2012

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Keeping track of self-executed facial expressions is essential for the ability to correctly interpret and reciprocate social expressions. However, little is known about neural mechanisms that participate in self-monitoring of facial expression. We designed a natural paradigm for social interactions where a monkey is seated in front of a peer monkey that is concealed by an opaque liquid crystal display shutter positioned between them. Opening the shutter for short durations allowed the monkeys to see each other and encouraged facial communication. To explore neural mechanisms that participate in self-monitoring of facial expression, we simultaneously recorded the elicited natural facial interactions and the neural activity of single neurons in the amygdala and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), two regions that are implicated with decoding of others' gestures. Neural activity in both regions was temporally locked to distinctive facial gestures and close inspection of time lags revealed activity that either preceded (production) or lagged (monitor) initiation of facial expressions. This result indicates that single neurons in the dACC and the amygdala hold information about self-executed facial expressions and demonstrates an intimate overlap between the neural networks that participate in decoding and production of socially informative facial information.face-to-face interaction | spike triggered average | facial-expression production | amygdala-cingulate interaction A ccurate decoding of social interaction requires information about all participants, including one's own behavior. We would interpret differently a smile if we knew that we smiled first (or not) and, similarly, a threatening face has different meaning if we threatened first. Computationally, this ambiguity implies that information about the observed facial expression and one's own expression should converge in the network to incorporate these complementary sources of information. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms that enable such integration.Successful decoding of a facial expression should allow a rapid adequate response to the outcome that is implied by this meaningful expression. Accordingly, the amygdala, a structure associated with representing the learned valence of sensory inputs (1, 2), has been implicated with decoding and processing of various facial expressions (3). Notably, bilateral amygdala lesion selectively impairs recognition of fear expressions (4), which possibly signal the existence of an immediate threat. In addition, amygdala responses to fear and other facial expressions are modulated by social context (5, 6) (e.g., gaze direction), suggesting that the amygdala also participates in the decoding processes of a wider range of emotionally salient facial signals.The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is hypothesized to synthesize information about reinforcers with the current behavioral goal (7) and contributes to the resolution of emotional conflicts (8). Like the amygdala, dACC response to facia...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Self-monitoring of social facial expressions in the primate amygdala and cingulate cortex

Livneh

Resnik

Shohat

et al. 2012

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Furthermore, we used dynamic instead of static stimuli for the reason of higher ecological validity: in everyday life, during social interactions, dynamic facial expressions rather than static facial displays serve as the primary conveyors of social-emotional information (see also Hurlemann et al, 2008). We thereby adapted an approach used in recent single-neuron recording studies of the primate amygdala (Kuraoka and Nakamura, 2007). Each movie had a duration of three sec and was presented three times, resulting in 30 stimulus presentations per condition.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling a Negative Response Bias in the Human Amygdala by Noradrenergic–Glucocorticoid Interactions

et al. 2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An emerging theme in the neuroscience of emotion is the question of how acute stress shapes, and distorts, social-emotional behavior. The prevailing neurocircuitry models of social-emotional behavior emphasize the central role of the amygdala. Acute stress leads to increased central levels of norepinephrine (NE) and cortisol (CORT), and evidence suggests that these endogenous neuromodulators synergistically influence amygdala responses to social-emotional stimuli. We therefore hypothesized that amygdala responses to emotional facial expressions would be susceptible to pharmacologically induced increases in central NE and CORT levels. To specifically test this hypothesis, we measured amygdala activation to emotional faces using functional magnetic resonance imaging in 62 healthy subjects under four pharmacological conditions: (1) single oral dose of placebo, (2) 4 mg of the selective NE-reuptake inhibitor reboxetine (RBX), (3) 30 mg of hydrocortisone, or (4) both drugs in combination. We found that a decrease in amygdala activation to positive facial emotion was coupled with an increase in amygdala activation to negative facial emotion in the RBX-CORT combined challenge condition. In conclusion, a pharmacologically induced elevation of central NE and CORT levels in healthy subjects created a negative response bias in the amygdala that did not exist at baseline. Our results implicate a causative role of NE-CORT interactions in the emergence of a negative bias of cognitive and emotional functions which is germane in stress-related affective spectrum disorders.

show abstract

“…This distribution of response latency suggests that the pulvinar mediates intracortical connections as well as faster subcortical feedforward connections to the amygdala. Lastly, response latency in the monkey amygdala selective for faces and facial expressions ranges from 100 to 150 ms (Gothard, Battaglia, Erickson, Spitler, & Amaral, 2007;Kuraoka & Nakamura, 2007).…”

Section: Timing and Speed Of Processing Along The Subcortical Pathwaymentioning

confidence: 99%

From affective blindsight to emotional consciousness

Celeghin

Gelder

Tamietto

2015

Consciousness and Cognition

111

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tFollowing destruction or denervation of the primary visual cortex (V1) cortical blindness ensues. Affective blindsight refers to the uncanny ability of such patients to respond correctly, or above chance level, to visual emotional expressions presented to their blind fields. Fifteen years after its original discovery, affective blindsight still fascinates neuroscientists and philosophers alike, as it offers a unique window on the vestigial properties of our visual system that, though present in the intact brain, tend to be unnoticed or even actively inhibited by conscious processes. Here we review available studies on affective blindsight with the intent to clarify its functional properties, neural bases and theoretical implications. Evidence converges on the role of subcortical structures of old evolutionary origin such as the superior colliculus, the pulvinar and the amygdala in mediating affective blindsight and nonconscious perception of emotions. We conclude that approaching consciousness, and its absence, from the vantage point of emotion processing may uncover important relations between the two phenomena, as consciousness may have evolved as an evolutionary specialization to interact with others and become aware of their social and emotional expressions.

show abstract

Responses of Single Neurons in Monkey Amygdala to Facial and Vocal Emotions

Cited by 110 publications

References 41 publications

Self-monitoring of social facial expressions in the primate amygdala and cingulate cortex

Self-monitoring of social facial expressions in the primate amygdala and cingulate cortex

Modeling a Negative Response Bias in the Human Amygdala by Noradrenergic–Glucocorticoid Interactions

From affective blindsight to emotional consciousness

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About