Attentional bias towards and away from fearful faces is modulated by developmental amygdala damage.

ABSTRACT: The amygdala is believed to play a major role in orienting attention towards threat-related stimuli. However, behavioral studies on amygdala-damaged patients have given inconsistent results-variously reporting decreased, persisted, and increased attention towards threat. Here we aimed to characterize the impact of developmental amygdala damage on emotion perception and the nature and time-course of spatial attentional bias towards fearful faces. We investigated SF, a 14-year-old with selective bilateral amygdala damage due to Urbach-Wiethe disease (UWD), and ten healthy controls. Participants completed a fear sensitivity questionnaire, facial expression classification task, and dot-probe task with fearful or neutral faces for spatial cueing. Three cue durations were used to assess the time

SUBMITTER: Pishnamazi M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4962776 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature