The Amygdala: Emotional Modulation of Attention

描述(由申请人提供)：越来越多的数据表明，情感刺激优先获得注意力资源。这种效应可以体现为检测时间的缩短、皮质反应的增强以及对同时或紧接着的刺激的处理的更大中断。杏仁核被认为在注意力的情绪引导中起着关键作用。这种影响在焦虑症的几种神经行为模型中占有显著地位。然而，支持这一假说的直接证据极其有限，而且对杏仁核选择性损伤影响注意力调节的方面知之甚少。我们实验室的初步数据显示，因顽固性癫痫而接受选择性单侧杏仁核和前海马区切除的患者，在特定的注意任务中表现出缺陷。这些缺陷包括对令人厌恶的情绪图片没有表现出注意的眨眼，对情绪刺激的视觉搜索减慢，以及在情绪Stroop范式中情绪词的呈现过程中没有表现出任何减慢。本提案旨在阐明受人类杏仁核损伤影响的注意力的特定组成部分。此外，我们建议测试最近的理论，这些理论假设左右杏仁核不同地参与处理有意识和无意识的刺激以及条件刺激和天生的情感刺激。为此，我们建议对38名患者在接受单侧(半右半左)杏仁核-海马区切除术治疗顽固性癫痫前后进行研究。此外，我们还将研究38名年龄、性别、利手和教育程度匹配的对照组，以及38名与杏仁核海马区切除术患者匹配的非手术癫痫患者的抗惊厥药物使用情况。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反应的注意力指导的具体影响。这项研究是第一次深入研究选择性杏仁核损伤在不同注意力调制任务中的作用。它在情感文献中是独一无二的，它在手术前和手术后对患者的检查以及排除抗惊厥药物的混淆的能力。因此，这项研究将能够以一定程度的精确度解决杏仁核损伤的影响，这是以前对人类杏仁核的研究所无法达到的。

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.