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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
Hypervigilance for fear after basolateral amygdala damage in humans
Translational Psychiatry, Volume 2, Article e115, Year 2012
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Description
Recent rodent research has shown that the basolateral amygdala (BLA) inhibits unconditioned, or innate, fear. It is, however, unknown whether the BLA acts in similar ways in humans. In a group of five subjects with a rare genetic syndrome, that is, Urbach-Wiethe disease (UWD), we used a combination of structural and functional neuroimaging, and established focal, bilateral BLA damage, while other amygdala sub-regions are functionally intact. We tested the translational hypothesis that these BLA-damaged UWD-subjects are hypervigilant to facial expressions of fear, which are prototypical innate threat cues in humans. Our data indeed repeatedly confirm fear hypervigilance in these UWD subjects. They show hypervigilant responses to unconsciously presented fearful faces in a modified Stroop task. They attend longer to the eyes of dynamically displayed fearful faces in an eye-tracked emotion recognition task, and in that task recognize facial fear significantly better than control subjects. These findings provide the first direct evidence in humans in support of an inhibitory function of the BLA on the brain's threat vigilance system, which has important implications for the understanding of the amygdala's role in the disorders of fear and anxiety. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved.
Available Materials
https://efashare.b-cdn.net/share/pmc/articles/PMC3365265/bin/tp201246x1.doc
Authors & Co-Authors
Terburg, David
Netherlands, Utrecht
Universiteit Utrecht
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Morgan, Barak E.
South Africa, Cape Town
Mrc/uct Medical Imaging Research Unit
Montoya, Estrella R.
Netherlands, Utrecht
Universiteit Utrecht
Hooge, Ignace Th C.
Netherlands, Utrecht
Universiteit Utrecht
Thornton, Helena B.
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Hariri, Ahmad R.
United States, Durham
Duke University
Panksepp, Jaak
United States, Pullman
Washington State University Pullman
Stein, Dan J.
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Van Honk, Jack
Netherlands, Utrecht
Universiteit Utrecht
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Statistics
Citations: 105
Authors: 9
Affiliations: 5
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1038/tp.2012.46
e-ISSN:
21583188
Research Areas
Genetics And Genomics
Health System And Policy
Mental Health