Amygdala-Prefrontal Interactions When Interpreting Ambiguous Facial Expressions

描述（由申请人提供）：解读他人模糊面部表情时的杏仁核-前额叶相互作用对情绪面部表情的研究表明，个体对不同的面部表情表现出特定的行为、生理和神经反应，这些反应的异常与精神病理密切相关。特别重要的是，有人认为杏仁核和内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）之间的动态相互作用在处理面部表情方面起着至关重要的作用。虽然大量的研究集中在具有明确情绪效价的面部表情上（例如，恐惧的脸），但研究人们如何消除情绪模糊的面部表情（例如，惊讶的脸）可能被证明是评估杏仁核- mpfc相互作用的有用方法。事实上，之前的研究表明，这些区域彼此之间呈反比关系，它们的活动取决于每个人对惊讶面孔的评价是积极的还是消极的（Kim et al., 2003; 2004）。基于这些发现，本研究的目的是阐明杏仁核-前额叶相互作用在解释情感模糊刺激中的本质。为此，这些研究的发现将有助于通过以下方式对杏仁核- mpfc回路的现有知识做出贡献：a)在Aim 1中识别出主要是积极/消极与真正模棱两可的惊讶面孔及其对大脑活动的影响；b)在Aim 2中通过自发和/或诱导的感知效态变化来解决惊讶面孔的模糊性，从而评估杏仁核- mpfc的相互作用。c)建立观察到的杏仁核- mpfc回路的遗传和解剖学基础，以便更好地了解驱动两个大脑区域之间串扰的潜在机制。鉴于许多关于精神病理障碍的研究的重点是杏仁核的异常和mPFC对这种结构施加调节影响的失败，拟议的研究将通过针对特定精神病理障碍的实验任务提供对杏仁核-mPFC回路的更好理解，从而有助于促进精神病理学的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Amygdala-prefrontal Interactions when Interpreting Ambiguous Facial Expressions of Others Research on facial expressions of emotion has demonstrated that individuals exhibit specific behavioral, physiological, and neural reactions to different facial expressions, and abnormalities of these reactions are closely linked to psychopathology. Of particular importance, it has been suggested that the dynamic interaction between the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a crucial role in processing facial expressions. While a significant body of research has focused on facial expressions with clear emotional valence (e.g., fearful faces), studying how people disambiguate emotionally ambiguous facial expressions (e.g., surprised faces) could prove to be a useful approach in assessing amygdala-mPFC interactions. Indeed, previous studies have shown that these regions show an inverse relationship with each other, and that their activity was determined by each individual's evaluation of the surprised faces as being positive or negative (Kim et al., 2003; 2004). Based on these findings, the objective of the proposed studies is to elucidate the nature of amygdala-prefrontal interactions in the interpretation of emotionally ambiguous stimuli. To this end, the findings from the proposed studies will contribute to existing knowledge of the amygdala-mPFC circuitry by a) identifying surprised faces that are predominantly positive/negative versus truly ambiguous and their impact on brain activity in Aim 1, b) assessing the amygdala-mPFC interaction by resolving ambiguity in surprised faces through spontaneous and/or induced changes in their perceived valence in Aim 2, and c) establishing genetic and anatomical bases of the observed amygdala-mPFC circuitry, in order to better understand the underlying mechanism that is driving the crosstalk between the two brain regions. Given that the focus of many investigations concerning psychopathological disorders is on the abnormality of the amygdala and the failure of the mPFC to exert regulatory influence on such structures, the proposed studies will help facilitate the study of psychopathology by providing a better understanding of the amygdala-mPFC circuitry through experimental tasks that could be tailored to specific psychopathological disorders. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Amygdala-prefrontal Interactions when Interpreting Ambiguous Facial Expressions of Others Efficient crosstalk between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex is an essential component of successful emotion regulation (Urry et al., 2006), and conversely, aberrant amygdala-prefrontal circuitry is a hallmark of many major mood and anxiety disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (Shin et al., 2005) or major depression (Johnstone et al., 2007). By taking advantage of the inherent emotional ambiguity associated with surprised faces, the tasks in the proposed studies are specifically tailored to tap into and assess the amygdala- prefrontal circuitry. These tasks will be directly applicable to the study of psychopathological groups, allowing the assessment of the amygdala-prefrontal circuitry and its relationship to specific behavioral symptoms, as well as providing a quantifiable index of the functional changes in this circuitry that could be utilized to compare the effectiveness of different treatment types.