Abstract
BackgroundAmygdala is a key brain region for face perception. While the role of amygdala in the perception of facial emotion and gaze has been extensively highlighted with fMRI, the unfolding in time of amydgala responses to emotional versus neutral faces with different gaze directions is scarcely known.Methodology/Principal FindingsHere we addressed this question in healthy subjects using MEG combined with an original source imaging method based on individual amygdala volume segmentation and the localization of sources in the amygdala volume. We found an early peak of amygdala activity that was enhanced for fearful relative to neutral faces between 130 and 170 ms. The effect of emotion was again significant in a later time range (310–350 ms). Moreover, the amygdala response was greater for direct relative averted gaze between 190 and 350 ms, and this effect was selective of fearful faces in the right amygdala.ConclusionAltogether, our results show that the amygdala is involved in the processing and integration of emotion and gaze cues from faces in different time ranges, thus underlining its role in multiple stages of face perception.
Highlights
Over the past decades, the amygdala has been highlighted as a key structure in the perception of emotional and social stimuli, such as faces [1,2]
We localized the sources of magnetic activity in each subject using individual amygdala volumes in addition to the cortical surface as our source imaging model in order to investigate amygdala responses to fearful and neutral faces with direct and averted gaze
We analyzed the mean amplitude of amygdala activity between 130 and 170 ms in order to encompass the major part of the early prominent peak response across subjects
Summary
The amygdala has been highlighted as a key structure in the perception of emotional and social stimuli, such as faces [1,2]. The description of patients with bilateral amygdala lesions led to the hypothesis of a selective involvement of amygdala in the perception of fear [4,5] This view has evolved over the years to support the proposal of the amygdala as a key structure in the appraisal of stimulus relevance [6,7,8]. While amygdala involvement in the processing of emotional expression and gaze cues from faces is well established, little is known about the dynamics of the neuronal responses in the human amygdala. While the role of amygdala in the perception of facial emotion and gaze has been extensively highlighted with fMRI, the unfolding in time of amydgala responses to emotional versus neutral faces with different gaze directions is scarcely known
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