This R01 application proposes to use functional neuroimaging with human subjects to elucidate the role of prefrontal-amygdala circuitry in the processing of facial expressions that predict different social outcomes. Presentations of facial expressions of emotion in neuroimaging studies have proven particularly robust stimuli for activating amygdala and prefrontal regions involved in processing biologically-relevant social cues. Further, these tasks have proven useful for revealing aberrant brain activation patterns in patients with various emotional disorders (e.g., anxiety, depression). Here we propose to further develop facial expression tasks for use with specific psychopathological disorders. The utility of this work is that it will provide for a better understanding of the basic rules that determine amygdala response (Aim 1), allow us to better understand how the amygdala interacts with reciprocally connected prefrontal areas when such expressions are encountered (Aim 2) and tie this social/emotional human work to the greater Pavlovian conditioning work, which shows particular promise for elucidating the neural substrates of fear learning and its aberrations in anxiety disorders (Aim 3). The experiments proposed here are critical for establishing an understanding of the normal pattern of human brain responsivity to important social cues in order to allow future developmental research (i.e., with children and adolescents) as well as direct translation to clinical populations. An area of the brain called the amygdala is particularly responsive to the facial expressions of others and has been shown to exhibit exaggerated reactivity to the facial expression of fear in subjects with anxiety disorders. This may, in part, underlie the symptoms of increased vigilance and hyper-reactivity to potential threat that plague individuals with anxiety disorders. The studies proposed here will further our understanding of these brain responses to facial expressions and offer improved human brain imaging tasks for future study of the brain responses that underlie anxiety disorders.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH080716-04
Application #
7869368
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-L (50))
Program Officer
Simmons, Janine M
Project Start
2007-07-01
Project End
2012-01-31
Budget Start
2010-06-01
Budget End
2012-01-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$359,775
Indirect Cost
Name
Dartmouth College
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
041027822
City
Hanover
State
NH
Country
United States
Zip Code
03755
Kim, M Justin; Shin, Jin; Taylor, James M et al. (2017) Intolerance of uncertainty predicts increased striatal volume. Emotion 17:895-899
Kim, M Justin; Mattek, Alison M; Bennett, Randi H et al. (2017) Human Amygdala Tracks a Feature-Based Valence Signal Embedded within the Facial Expression of Surprise. J Neurosci 37:9510-9518
Kim, M Justin; Mattek, Alison M; Burr, Daisy A et al. (2017) Preliminary report on the association between pulvinar volume and the ability to detect backward-masked facial features. Neuropsychologia :
Mattek, Alison M; Wolford, George L; Whalen, Paul J (2017) A Mathematical Model Captures the Structure of Subjective Affect. Perspect Psychol Sci 12:508-526
Mattek, Alison M; Whalen, Paul J; Berkowitz, Julia L et al. (2016) Differential effects of cognitive load on subjective versus motor responses to ambiguously valenced facial expressions. Emotion 16:929-36
Wen, Qiuting; Stirling, Brian D; Sha, Long et al. (2016) Parcellation of Human Amygdala Subfields Using Orientation Distribution Function and Spectral K-means Clustering. Comput Diffus MRI (2016) 2016:123-132
Davis, F Caroline; Neta, Maital; Kim, M Justin et al. (2016) Interpreting ambiguous social cues in unpredictable contexts. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 11:775-82
Kim, M Justin; Brown, Annemarie C; Mattek, Alison M et al. (2016) The Inverse Relationship between the Microstructural Variability of Amygdala-Prefrontal Pathways and Trait Anxiety Is Moderated by Sex. Front Syst Neurosci 10:93
Kim, M Justin; Solomon, Kimberly M; Neta, Maital et al. (2016) A face versus non-face context influences amygdala responses to masked fearful eye whites. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 11:1933-1941
Taylor, James M; Whalen, Paul J (2015) Neuroimaging and Anxiety: the Neural Substrates of Pathological and Non-pathological Anxiety. Curr Psychiatry Rep 17:49

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