Ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage alters resting blood flow to the bed nucleus of stria terminalis.

ABSTRACT: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays a key role in modulating emotional responses, yet the precise neural mechanisms underlying this function remain unclear. vmPFC interacts with a number of subcortical structures involved in affective processing, including the amygdala, hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray, ventral striatum, and bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST). While a previous study of non-human primates shows that vmPFC lesions reduce BNST activity and anxious behavior, no such causal evidence exists in humans. In this study, we used a novel application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in neurosurgical patients with focal, bilateral vmPFC damage to determine whether vmPFC is indeed critical for modulating BNST function in humans. Relative to neurologically healthy sub

SUBMITTER: Motzkin JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4346536 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature