Electrophysiological responses in the human amygdala discriminate emotion categories of complex visual stimuli

Hiroyuki Oya; Hiroto Kawasaki; Matthew A Howard III; Ralph Adolphs

doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.22-21-09502.2002

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Electrophysiological responses in the human amygdala discriminate emotion categories of complex visual stimuli

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Electrophysiological responses in the human amygdala discriminate emotion categories of complex visual stimuli

Hiroyuki Oya, Hiroto Kawasaki, Matthew A Howard III and Ralph Adolphs

The Journal of neuroscience, Vol.22(21), pp.9502-9512

11/01/2002

DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.22-21-09502.2002

PMCID: PMC6758059

PMID: 12417674

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https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.22-21-09502.2002View

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Abstract

The human amygdala has been shown to participate in processing emotionally salient stimuli related to threat, danger, and aversion, data that have come primarily from functional imaging and lesion studies. Recording intracranial field potentials from five amygdalas in four patients with chronically implanted depth electrodes, we analyzed responses in the gamma frequency range, a region of the power spectrum thought to reflect especially the contribution of neuronal activity to cognitive processes. Significant changes in the power amplitude of responses were obtained selectively to visual images judged to look aversive but not to those judged to look pleasant or neutral. Several possible confounds were addressed: all four patients had been carefully selected so that the amygdalas from which recordings were obtained were distal to epileptogenic foci, making it likely that we recorded from healthy tissue, and the observed responses could not be attributed to luminance or color differences between the stimuli. A further analysis of differences in power between the high and low gamma bands revealed an additional structure that discriminated those stimuli related to bodily injury from those related to disgust. Despite the increased power amplitude in the gamma range, there was no stimulus-locked phase coherence. The observed responses in the gamma frequency range may reflect the role of the amygdala in binding perceptual representations of the stimuli with memory, emotional response, and modulation of ongoing cognition, on the basis of the emotional significance of the stimuli.

Emotions - physiology

Amygdala - physiopathology

Emotions - classification

Humans

Middle Aged

Evoked Potentials

Epilepsy, Complex Partial - physiopathology

Male

Electrodes, Implanted

Brain Mapping - methods

Electroencephalography - methods

Photic Stimulation - methods

Arousal

Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology

Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted

Adult

Epilepsy, Complex Partial - diagnosis

Female

Biological Clocks

Details

Title: Subtitle: Electrophysiological responses in the human amygdala discriminate emotion categories of complex visual stimuli
Creators: Hiroyuki Oya - Department of Neurology, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA
Hiroto Kawasaki
Matthew A Howard III
Ralph Adolphs
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: The Journal of neuroscience, Vol.22(21), pp.9502-9512
Publisher: United States
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.22-21-09502.2002
PMID: 12417674
PMCID: PMC6758059
ISSN: 0270-6474
eISSN: 1529-2401
Language: English
Date published: 11/01/2002
Academic Unit: Neurology; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Neurosurgery; Otolaryngology
Record Identifier: 9984020894102771

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