Parkinson's Disease, Psychophysiology, and the Amygdala

帕金森病、心理生理学和杏仁核

• 批准号: 6993762
• 负责人: KIMBERLY M MILLER
• 金额: $ 2.98万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-07-01 至 2007-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6993762
• 关键词: Parkinson' s disease; amygdala; behavioral /social science research tag; brain electrical activity; brain morphology; clinical research; emotions; fear; human subject; neural information processing; neuropathology; patient oriented research; predoctoral investigator; psychophysiology; social perception; startle reaction; stimulus /response

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Preliminary studies from our laboratory suggest that Parkinson patients may demonstrate a significantly diminished emotional reactivity to fear-inducing emotional materials compared to their healthy counterparts. This may be related to the fact that the amygdala has been shown to exhibit pathology in Parkinson's disease (PD), and is a neural structure that plays a key role in processing and interpreting signals of threat in the environment. As such, the proposed study will test the following hypotheses: a) Parkinson patients will demonstrate reduced emotional reactivity, as indexed by emotional modulation of startle, to both verbal and nonverbal fear-inducing stimuli; b) emotional reactivity to fear inducing materials will correlate with amygdala volume; and c) reduced emotional reactivity will correlate with an increased propensity for families to inaccurately view their Parkinson family member as depressed and unmotivated. These hypotheses will be tested through a method that is not confounded by deficits of overt expression in PD: emotional modulation of the startle eyeblink reflex. Increased understanding of emotional changes accompanying PD may prove to be clinically useful by reducing problems such as healthcare worker and family member misattributions that the Parkinson patient is "uninterested" or depressed due to lack of reaction. This proposal will also examine 1 potential neural mechanism for reduced emotional reactivity in PD, decreased amygdala volume, with the aim of increasing knowledge of neuropathological changes that may lead to emotional reactivity deficits in PD.

描述（由申请人提供）：我们实验室的初步研究表明，帕金森患者可能表明，与健康的对应物相比，对引起恐惧的情绪材料的情绪反应性显着降低。这可能与以下事实有关：杏仁核已被证明在帕金森氏病（PD）中表现出病理学，并且是一种神经结构，在处理和解释环境中威胁信号方面起着关键作用。因此，拟议的研究将检验以下假设：a）帕金森患者将表现出降低的情绪反应性，如令人惊吓的情绪调节所索引，以引起言语和非语言恐惧的刺激； b）对恐惧诱导材料的情绪反应性将与杏仁核量相关； c）情绪反应性降低将与家庭不准确地将其帕金森氏症家族成员视为沮丧和无动力的倾向增加。这些假设将通过一种方法进行测试，该方法不会因PD中明显表达的缺陷而混淆：惊吓眼睛反射的情绪调制。通过减少诸如医疗保健工作者和家庭成员错误的问题，帕金森患者对帕金森患者“不感兴趣”或由于缺乏反应而沮丧的问题，对伴随PD伴随的情绪变化的了解可能会在临床上有用。该建议还将检查1种潜在的神经机制，以降低PD的情绪反应性，减少杏仁核的体积，以增加对神经病理学变化的了解，这可能导致PD中的情绪反应性缺陷。