Awareness of Emotional Stimuli Determines the Behavioral Consequences of Amygdala Activation and Amygdala-Prefrontal Connectivity
Adult
Male
0301 basic medicine
Behavior
Adolescent
Consciousness
Emotions
Prefrontal Cortex
Fear
Awareness
Amygdala
Article
Oxygen
Young Adult
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Face
Humans
Female
Nerve Net
Photic Stimulation
DOI:
10.1038/srep25826
Publication Date:
2016-05-16T09:32:15Z
AUTHORS (9)
ABSTRACT
AbstractConscious awareness of negative cues is thought to enhance emotion-regulatory capacity, but the neural mechanisms underlying this effect are unknown. Using continuous flash suppression (CFS) in the MRI scanner, we manipulated visual awareness of fearful faces during an affect misattribution paradigm, in which preferences for neutral objects can be biased by the valence of a previously presented stimulus. The amygdala responded to fearful faces independently of awareness. However, when awareness of fearful faces was prevented, individuals with greater amygdala responses displayed a negative bias toward unrelated novel neutral faces. In contrast, during the aware condition, inverse coupling between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex reduced this bias, particularly among individuals with higher structural connectivity in the major white matter pathway connecting the prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Collectively, these results indicate that awareness promotes the function of a critical emotion-regulatory network targeting the amygdala, providing a mechanistic account for the role of awareness in emotion regulation.
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