The role of serotonin in emotional processing

该方案的目标是使用有针对性的5 -羟色胺能操纵（色氨酸耗竭：ATD）和特定的神经认知和神经影像学范式来考虑5 -羟色胺在情绪处理中的作用。我们的目标是评估血清素在有效处理厌恶信号中的作用。此外，我们将研究色氨酸耗竭是否会减弱神经对厌恶物质的反应。最近，我们一直在研究色氨酸消耗的影响与个体是否携带短形式的血清素转运体基因或该基因的长形式纯合子之间的相互作用。

The goal of this protocol is to use a targeted serotonergic manipulation (tryptophan depletion: ATD) and specific neurocognitive and neuroimaging paradigms to consider the role of serotonin in emotional processing. Our goal was to evaluate claims that serotonin has a role in the effective processing of aversive signals. In addition, we will examine whether tryptophan depletion will attenuate the neural response to aversive material. More recently we have been examining interactions between the impact of tryptophan depletion and whether individuals are carriers of the short form of the serotoning transporter gene or are long form homozygotes for this gene. We have found that tryptophan can have a differential effect on individuals who are short form carriers and long form homozygotes and that this appears to be task specific. For emotional learning tasks involving the processing of punishment information, ATD particularly disrupts the ability of individuals who are long form homozygotes. In contrast, for tasks of affective social cognition, such as fearful expression recognition, ATD particularly disrupts the performance of individuals who are s carriers. The implications of these results are being explored in current work.