Distinct brain activity in processing negative pictures of animals and objects - the role of human contexts.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies have shown that the amygdala is important in processing not only animate entities but also social information. It remains to be determined to what extent the factors of category and social context interact to modulate the activities of the amygdala and cortical regions. In this study, pictures depicting animals and inanimate objects in negative and neutral levels were presented. The contexts of the pictures differed in whether they included human/human parts. The factors of valence, arousal, familiarity and complexity of pictures were controlled across categories. The results showed that the amygdala activity was modulated by category and contextual information. Under the nonhuman context condition, the amygdala responded more to animals than objects for both negative and

SUBMITTER: Cao Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3849327 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature