Role of the amygdala in processing threatening animals and manipulable objects

描述（由申请人提供）：过度增加或减少恐惧与许多脑部疾病密切相关，包括社交和动物恐惧症，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起着重要的作用，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，这些研究中使用的大多数刺激都包含人类或与人类相关的信息，这表明杏仁核对动画的、相同的信息敏感。关于杏仁核是否在处理任何生物实体中起着更普遍的作用，以及杏仁核在不同种类的大脑疾病中有什么共同作用，我们知之甚少。我们的长期目标是确定对不同类型刺激产生恐惧的神经机制。这一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；也就是说，有威胁的动物和可操纵的物体。这项研究的核心假设是，杏仁核的活动与探测生物实体（即自主移动的生物）高度相关。我们提出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揭示恐惧和情绪相关大脑疾病的神经机制。我们计划通过追求三个具体目标来检验我们的中心假设并实现本应用程序的总体目标，以确定(1)模态的影响；(2)动画和社会背景；(3)对具有威胁性的动物和物体的杏仁核激活的自觉意识。一系列的研究将进行，主要使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）技术，以母语为汉语的人为研究对象。为了使不同类别的情感水平相等，在fMRI扫描之前，将对不同组的受试者的效价和唤醒水平进行评级和匹配。这项研究具有重要意义，因为它不仅阐明了杏仁核中的类别表征，而且有助于我们了解与情绪相关的大脑疾病的本质，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。它将帮助我们了解情绪相关大脑疾病的本质，并有助于改善患有这种疾病的患者的康复努力。当人们害怕不同种类的威胁性刺激时，这对理解杏仁核如何以进化的方式做好准备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.