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Impaired threat prioritisation after selective bilateral amygdala lesions.

Bach, DR; Hurlemann, R; Dolan, RJ; (2015) Impaired threat prioritisation after selective bilateral amygdala lesions. Cortex , 63 206 - 213. 10.1016/j.cortex.2014.08.017. Green open access

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Abstract

The amygdala is proposed to process threat-related information in non-human animals. In humans, empirical evidence from lesion studies has provided the strongest evidence for a role in emotional face recognition and social judgement. Here we use a face-in-the-crowd (FITC) task which in healthy control individuals reveals prioritised threat processing, evident in faster serial search for angry compared to happy target faces. We investigate AM and BG, two individuals with bilateral amygdala lesions due to Urbach-Wiethe syndrome, and 16 control individuals. In lesion patients we show a reversal of a threat detection advantage indicating a profound impairment in prioritising threat information. This is the first direct demonstration that human amygdala lesions impair prioritisation of threatening faces, providing evidence that this structure has a causal role in responding to imminent danger.

Type: Article
Title: Impaired threat prioritisation after selective bilateral amygdala lesions.
Location: Italy
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2014.08.017
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2014.08.017
Language: English
Additional information: © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Keywords: Amygdala lesion, Facial expression, Fear, Serial search, Threat, Urbach–Wiethe
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1450639
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