Role of the amygdala in processing threatening animals and manipulable objects

描述(申请人提供)：过度增加或减少恐惧与许多大脑障碍密切相关，包括社交恐惧症和动物恐惧症、创伤后应激障碍、自闭症谱系障碍和威廉综合征。杏仁核被证实在情绪处理中发挥重要作用，特别是对负面/威胁性刺激。最近的研究还表明，杏仁核对社会刺激有反应，包括中性面孔和视觉社会信息。然而，大多数这些研究中使用的刺激包含人类或与人类相关的信息，这表明杏仁核对有活力的同种信息很敏感。关于杏仁核是否在处理任何有生命的实体中扮演着更一般的角色，以及杏仁核在不同种类的大脑疾病中的共同作用，人们知之甚少。我们的长期目标是确定对不同类别刺激的恐惧神经机制。这项提议的目的是确定杏仁核如何参与处理不同类别的威胁刺激，即威胁动物和可操纵的物体。这项拟议研究的中心假设是，杏仁核的活动与检测有生命的实体(即自行移动的生物)高度相关。我们提出的这项研究的基本原理是，确定刺激类别和杏仁核激活之间的关系将有助于揭示恐惧和情绪相关大脑疾病的神经机制。我们计划测试我们的中心假设，并通过追求三个具体目标来实现这一应用的总体目标，以确定(1)情态；(2)动画和社会背景；以及(3)对杏仁核对威胁动物和物体的激活的意识的影响。将进行一系列的研究，主要使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)技术，以母语为汉语的人为对象。为了将不同类别的情感水平等同起来，在对不同的受试者进行fMRI扫描之前，将对价态和唤醒水平进行评级和匹配。这项拟议的研究具有重要意义，因为它不仅将阐明杏仁核中的类别表征，而且有助于我们了解情绪性脑疾病的性质，并有助于改善此类疾病患者的康复努力。公共卫生相关性：拟议的研究与公共卫生高度相关。它将帮助我们了解与情绪相关的大脑疾病的性质，并有助于改善此类疾病患者的康复努力。当人们害怕不同种类的威胁性刺激时，理解杏仁核是如何以进化的方式准备好的，也有重要的积极影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Excessively increased or decreased fear is strongly associated with a number of brain disorders, including social and animal phobias, posttraumatic stress disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and William's syndrome. The amygdala is confirmed to play an important role in emotional processing, particularly for negative/threatening stimuli. Recent studies have also shown that the amygdala is responsive to social stimuli, including neutral faces and visual social information. However, the stimuli used in most of these studies contain human or human-related information, which indicates that the amygdala is sensitive to animate, conspecific information. Little is known about whether the amygdala plays a more general role in processing any animate entities, and further, what the common role of the amygdala is in different varieties of brain disorders. Our long-term goal is to determine neural mechanisms of fear to different categories of stimuli. The objective of this proposal is to determine how the amygdala participates in processing different categories of threatening stimuli; i.e., threatening animals and manipulable objects. The central hypothesis for the proposed research is that the amygdala activity is highly associated with detecting animate entities (i.e., living things that move on their own). Our rationale for the proposed research is that determination of the relationship between stimulus category and amygdala activation would shed light on neural mechanisms of fear and emotional-related brain disorders. We plan to test our central hypothesis and accomplish the overall objective of this application by pursuing three specific aims, to determine the effects of (1) modality; (2) animate and social context; and (3) conscious awareness on amygdala activation for threatening animals and objects. A series of studies will be conducted, mainly using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique, with native Chinese speakers as subjects. In order to equate affective levels across categories, valence and arousal levels will be rated and matched before fMRI scanning in separate groups of subjects. This proposed research is significant, because it will not only elucidate the category representation in the amygdala, but also help us understand the nature of emotional-related brain disorders, and contribute to an improvement on rehabilitative efforts for patients with such disorders. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed research is highly relevant to public health. It will help us understand the nature of emotional-related brain disorders, and contribute to an improvement in rehabilitative efforts for patients with such disorders. There is also a significant positive impact in understanding how the amygdala is prepared in an evolutionary manner when people are afraid of different categories of threatening stimuli.