The effect of threat on novelty evoked amygdala responses. PLoS One 2013;8(5):e63220
Date
05/10/2013Pubmed ID
23658813Pubmed Central ID
PMC3643910DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0063220Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84877031808 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 22 CitationsAbstract
A number of recent papers have suggested that the amygdala plays a role in the brain's novelty detection circuit. In a recent study, we showed that this role may be specific to certain classes of biologically-relevant stimuli, such as human faces. The purpose of the present experiment was to determine whether other biologically-relevant stimuli also evoke novelty specific amygdala responses. To test this idea, we presented novel and repeated images of snakes and flowers while measuring BOLD. Surprisingly, we found that novel images of snakes and flowers evoke more amygdala activity than repeated images of snakes and flowers. Our results further confirm the robustness of the novelty evoked amygdala responses, even when compared with effects more traditionally associated with the amygdala. In addition, our results suggest that threatening stimuli may prime the amygdala to respond to other types of stimuli as well.
Author List
Balderston NL, Schultz DH, Helmstetter FJAuthor
Fred Helmstetter PhD Professor in the Psychology / Neuroscience department at University of Wisconsin - MilwaukeeMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AdolescentAdult
Amygdala
Brain Mapping
Female
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Photic Stimulation
