The Amygdala: Emotional Modulation of Attention

描述（由申请人提供）：越来越多的数据表明情绪刺激优先获得注意资源。这种效应可以表现为改进的检测时间，增强的皮层反应，以及对并发或紧随其后的刺激处理的更大破坏。杏仁核被假设在注意力的情感引导中起着关键作用。这种影响在焦虑障碍的几个神经行为模型中表现突出。然而，这一假设的直接证据非常有限，而且关于杏仁核选择性病变影响注意力调节的方面，我们所知甚少。我们实验室的初步数据表明，顽固性癫痫患者接受选择性单侧杏仁核和海马前部切除后，在特定的注意力任务中表现出缺陷。这些缺陷包括在面对令人厌恶的情绪图片时无法表现出注意力的眨眼，对情绪刺激的视觉搜索速度变慢，以及在情绪性Stroop范式中，在呈现情绪性词语时无法表现出任何减慢的表现。目前的建议旨在阐明的具体组成部分的注意力是由人类杏仁核病变的影响。此外，我们建议测试最近的理论，这些理论假设左杏仁核和右杏仁核在处理有意识和无意识刺激以及条件和天生情绪刺激方面有不同的参与。为此，我们拟对38例顽固性癫痫患者接受单侧（一半左右）杏仁核海马切除术前后进行研究。我们还将研究38名年龄、性别、利手性和教育程度相匹配的对照组，以及38名与杏仁核海马切除术相匹配的非手术癫痫患者，用于抗惊厥药物的使用。参与者将接受一系列测试，以确定杏仁核损伤对不同类型情绪刺激下注意力引导的具体影响。该研究代表了第一个彻底检查选择性杏仁核病变在不同注意力调节任务中的作用的研究。它在对患者术前和术后的检查以及排除抗惊厥药物混淆的能力方面在情绪文献中是独一无二的。因此，这项研究将能够精确地解决杏仁核病变的影响，这在以前的人类杏仁核研究中是无法实现的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Increasing data indicate that emotional stimuli gain preferential access to attentional resources. This effect can be instantiated as improved detection time, enhanced cortical responses, and greater disruption of the processing of concurrent or immediately subsequent stimuli. The amygdala has been hypothesized to play a critical role in the emotional guidance of attention. This influence figures prominently in several neuro-behavioral models of anxiety disorders. However, direct evidence for this hypothesis is extremely limited, and little is known regarding the aspects of attentional modulation that are affected by selective lesions of the amygdala. Preliminary data from our laboratory indicate that patients who have undergone selective unilateral removal of the amygdala and anterior hippocampus for intractable epilepsy show deficits in specific attentional tasks. These deficits include a failure to show an attentional blink in response to aversive emotional pictures, a slowed visual search for emotional stimuli, and a failure to show any slowing of performance during presentation of emotional words in the Emotional Stroop paradigm. The present proposal aims to elucidate the specific components of attention that are affected by amygdala lesions in humans. Additionally, we propose to test recent theories that posit that the left and right amygdala are differentially involved in processing conscious vs. unconscious stimuli and conditioned vs. innately emotional stimuli. Towards this end, we propose to study 38 patients before and after they undergo unilateral (half right-half left) amygdalohippocampectomies for intractable epilepsy. We will additionally study 38 age-, gender-, handedness- and education-matched controls, and 38 nonsurgical epilepsy patients who are matched with the amygdalohippocampectomy patients for anticonvulsant usage. Participants will receive a battery of tests to determine the specific effects of amygdala lesions on attentional guidance in response to different types of emotional stimuli. The study represents the first research to thoroughly examine the role of selective amygdala lesions on different tasks of attention modulation. It is unique in the emotion literature in its examination of patients both pre- and post-surgery and its ability to rule out confounds of anticonvulsant medications. Thus, the study will be able to address the effects of amygdala lesions with a degree of precision that has been unattainable in previous research on the human amygdala.