Amygdala-Prefrontal Interactions When Interpreting Ambiguous Facial Expressions

描述(申请人提供)：解释他人模棱两可的面部表情时，杏仁核-前额叶的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学密切相关。尤其重要的是，杏仁核和内侧前额叶皮质(MPFC)之间的动态相互作用在面部表情加工中起着至关重要的作用。虽然有大量的研究集中在具有明确情绪价位的面部表情(例如，恐惧的脸)上，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，以前的研究表明，这些区域相互之间显示出相反的关系，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等人，2003；2004)。基于这些发现，拟议研究的目的是阐明杏仁核-前额叶相互作用在解释情绪模糊刺激时的性质。为此，拟议研究的结果将有助于以下方面的现有知识：a)在目标1中识别以积极/消极为主的惊讶面孔，而不是真正模棱两可的面孔，以及它们对大脑活动的影响；b)在目标2中，通过自发和/或诱发的感知价态的变化来解决惊讶面孔中的歧义，从而评估杏仁核-mPFC的相互作用；以及c)建立观察到的杏仁核-mPFC环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焦点是杏仁核的异常和mPFC未能对此类结构施加调节影响，拟议的研究将通过为特定精神病理疾病量身定做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。 与公共健康相关：在解释他人模棱两可的面部表情时，杏仁核-前额叶相互作用是成功情绪调节的重要组成部分(Urry等人，2006年)，相反，杏仁核-前额叶回路异常是许多重大情绪和焦虑症的特征，如创伤后应激障碍(Shin等人，2005年)或严重抑郁症(Johnstone等人，2007年)。通过利用与惊讶的面孔相关的固有的情感模糊性，拟议的研究中的任务专门针对杏仁核-前额叶回路进行了挖掘和评估。这些任务将直接适用于精神病理组的研究，允许评估杏仁核-前额叶回路及其与特定行为症状的关系，并提供该回路中功能变化的可量化指数，可用于比较不同治疗类型的效果。

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.