Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T10:47:45.544Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Amygdala activation to masked happy facial expressions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2009

MARIO F. JURUENA ,
VINCENT P. GIAMPIETRO ,
STEPHEN D. SMITH ,
SIMON A. SURGULADZE ,
JEFFREY A. DALTON ,
PHILIP J. BENSON ,
ANTHONY J. CLEARE  and
CYNTHIA H.Y. FU
MARIO F. JURUENA
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom Department of Neurosciences and Behavioural Sciences, School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
VINCENT P. GIAMPIETRO
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
STEPHEN D. SMITH
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Canada
SIMON A. SURGULADZE
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
JEFFREY A. DALTON
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
PHILIP J. BENSON
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
ANTHONY J. CLEARE
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
CYNTHIA H.Y. FU*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
*
*Correspondence and reprint requests to: Cynthia H.Y. Fu, Institute of Psychiatry, 103 Denmark Hill, P074, London SE5 8AF UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The amygdala has a key role in automatic non-conscious processing of emotions. Highly salient emotional stimuli elicit amygdala activity, and happy faces are among the most rapidly perceived facial expressions. In backward masking paradigms, an image is presented briefly and then masked by another stimulus. However, reports of amygdala responses to masked happy faces have been mixed. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine amygdala activation to masked happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions. Masked happy faces elicited greater amygdala activation bilaterally as compared to masked sad faces. Our findings indicate that the amygdala is highly responsive to non-consciously perceived happy facial expressions. (JINS, 2010, 16, 383–387.)

Keywords

Functional magnetic resonance imagingSubliminalNon-consciousUnconsciousHappySadEmotion
Type
Brief Communications
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , March 2010 , pp. 383 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © The International Neuropsychological Society 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bruce, V., & Young, A.W. (1986). Understanding face recognition. British Journal of Psychology, 77, 305–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brammer, M.J., Bullmore, E.T., Simmons, A., Williams, S.C., Grasby, P.M., Howard, R.J., et al. . (1997). Generic brain activation mapping in functional magnetic resonance imaging: A nonparametric approach. Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 15, 763–770.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bullmore, E., Long, C., Suckling, J., Fadili, J., Calvert, G., Zelaya, F., et al. . (2001). Colored noise and computational inference in neurophysiological (fMRI) time series analysis: Resampling methods in time and wavelet domains. Human Brain Mapping, 12, 61–78.3.0.CO;2-W>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bullmore, E.T., Suckling, J., Overmeyer, S., Rabe-Hesketh, S., Taylor, E., & Brammer, M.J. (1999). Global, voxel, and cluster tests, by theory and permutation, for a difference between two groups of structural MR images of the brain. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 18, 32–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costafreda, S.G., Brammer, M.J., David, A.S., & Fu, C.H.Y. (2008). Predictors of amygdala activation during the processing of emotional stimuli: A meta-analysis of 385 PET and fMRI studies. Brain Research Reviews, 58, 57–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Esteves, F., & Ohman, A. (1993). Masking the face: Recognition of emotional facial expressions as a function of the parameters of backward masking. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 34, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fu, C.H.Y., Williams, S.C.R., Cleare, A.J., Brammer, M.J., Walsh, N.D., Kim, J., et al. . (2004). Antidepressant treatment attenuates the neural response to sad faces in major depression: A prospective, event-related functional MRI study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 61, 877–889.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fu, C.H.Y., Williams, S.C.R., Brammer, M.J., Suckling, J., Kim, J., Cleare, A.J., et al. . (2007). Neural responses to happy facial expressions in major depression following antidepressant treatment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 164, 599–607.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fu, C.H.Y., Williams, S.C.R., Cleare, A.J., Scott, J., Mitterschiffthaler, M.T., Walsh, N.D., et al. . (2008). Neural responses to sad facial expressions in major depression following cognitive behavior therapy. Biological Psychiatry, 64, 505–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habel, U., Windischberger, C., Derntl, B., Robinson, S., Kryspin-Exner, I., Gur, R.C., et al. . (2007). Amygdala activation and facial expressions: Explicit emotion discrimination versus implicit emotion processing. Neuropsychologia, 45, 2369–2377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haxby, J.V., Hoffman, E.A., & Gobbini, M.I. (2000). The distributed human neural system for face perception. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 223–233.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kesler-West, M.L., Andersen, A.H., Smith, C.D., Avison, M.J., Davis, C.E., Kryscio, R.J., et al. . (2001). Neural substrates of facial emotion processing using fMRI. Brain Research Cognition Brain Research, 11, 213–226.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Killgore, W.D., & Yurgelun-Todd, D.A. (2004). Activation of the amygdala and anterior cingulate during nonconscious processing of sad versus happy faces. Neuroimage, 21, 1215–1223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kotzé, H.F., & Möller, A.T. (1990). Effect of auditory subliminal stimulation on GSR. Psychological Reports, 67, 931–934.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laine, C.M., Spitler, K.M., Mosher, C.P., & Gothard, K.M. (2009). Behavioral triggers of skin conductance responses and their neural correlates in the primate amygdala. Journal of Neurophysiology, 101, 1749–1754.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lancaster, J.L., Woldorff, M.G., Parsons, L.M., Liotti, M., Freitas, C.S., Rainey, L., et al. . (2000). Automated Talairach Atlas labels for functional brain mapping. Human Brain Mapping, 10, 120–131.3.0.CO;2-8>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
LeDoux, J.E., Sakaguchi, A., & Reis, D.J. (1984). Subcortical efferent projections of the medial geniculate nucleus mediate emotional responses conditioned to acoustic stimuli. Journal of Neuroscience, 4, 683–698.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lundqvist, D., Flykt, A., & Öhman, A. (1998). The Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces. Stockholm: Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Psychology, Karolinska Institutet.Google Scholar
Sergent, J., Ohta, S., MacDonald, B., & Zuck, E. (1994). Segregated processing of facial identity and emotion in the human brain: A PET study. Visual Cognition, 1, 349–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, M., & Cantor, N. (1980). Thinking about ourselves and others: Self-monitoring and social knowledge. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 163–175.Google Scholar
Talairach, J., & Tournoux, P. (1988). A Co-planar Stereotactic Atlas of the Human Brain. Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag.Google Scholar
Todorov, A., & Engell, A.D. (2008). The role of the amygdala in implicit evaluation of emotionally neutral faces. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3, 303–312.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van den Bussche, E., Van den Noortgate, W., & Reynvoet, B. (2009). Mechanisms of masked priming: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 452–477.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wagar, B.M., & Dixon, M.J. (2006). Affective guidance in the Iowa gambling Task. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, 6, 277–290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Watson, D., & Tellegen, A. (1985). Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin, 98, 219–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whalen, P.J., Rauch, S.L., Etcoff, N.L., McInerney, S.C., Lee, M.B., & Jenike, M.A. (1998). Masked presentations of emotional facial expressions modulate amygdala activity without explicit knowledge. Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 411–418.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed