Decreased differential activity in the amygdala in response to fearful expressions in Type D personality

Abstract

Recent advances in functional brain imaging offer unique opportunities to explore the neurofunctional basis of tools used to assess personality differences which have proven their clinical usefulness. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, the focus was on the amygdala activation and we investigated whether individual differences in activity of the amygdala following presentation of emotional expressions in the face and the whole body may be systematically related to the presence of Type D (distressed) personality or to its constituting factors, Negative Affectivity (NA) and Social Inhibition (SI). Our results show that the observed difference in amygdala activity between fearful and neutral expressions was present in participants that did not meet the criteria for Type D personality, while this effect was absent in participants that could be classified as Type D personality. Our correlation analyses further showed that the activation in the left amygdala elicited by fearful versus neutral bodily expressions correlated negatively with the Negative Affectivity score. The same pattern was observed for the right amygdala for fearful facial and bodily expressions when contrasted with neutral facial and bodily expressions.