DIFFERENTIAL ENCODING OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS IN THE PRIMATE AMYGDALA

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Objective: The broad goal of the project was to determine how specific functions attributed to the amygdala are carried out at the neural level. One of the functions of the amygdala is to select from the environment stimuli with inherent emotional value and respond to them adequately, e.g., withdraw or fight when threatened. This process might rely on innately programmed and relatively inflexible pathways to ensure enduring and reliable reactions in response to objects and events of survival value. In parallel, the amygdala is required to update the reinforcing value of many stimuli that gain or lose emotional significance through learning and experience. Both functions are used for social behavior. The intricacy of primate societies requires that humans and monkeys respond reliably to facial expressions and other signals with emotional significance but also to adjust responses to social context or to the history of interactions between individuals. The neural basis of these complex and diverse functions are largely unknown. The central hypothesis of the project was that the lateral, basal, and central amygdaloid nuclei carry out a sequence of dissociable but complementary functions. The objective of the proposed studies was to identify in the amygdala the neural signature of stimulus differentiation, evaluation, and the initiation of emotional responses. These studies will determine the neural mechanism by which the amygdala evaluates stimuli of significance and relays the results of this process to a complex brain circuits that control emotional and social behavior. Understanding the neural processes carried out at each level of this circuit holds considerable promise for more effective interventions in emotional disorders.