Diverting Attention Suppresses Human Amygdala Responses to Faces

Morawetz, Carmen; Baudewig, Juergen; Treue, Stefan; Dechent, Peter

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2010.00226

Cited by 25 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 90 publications

(153 reference statements)

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“…Behavioral studies show that experimental manipulation of attention reduces emotion interference produced by distractive emotional stimuli, especially when attention load to the main task is high [15, 33]. This idea gives support to the present findings, in which meditators presented the most pronounced reduction in emotional interference after training and group differences were present only in the easy condition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

The Improvement of Emotion and Attention Regulation after a 6-Week Training of Focused Meditation: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Menezes

Couto

Buratto

et al. 2013

Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

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Self-regulatory trainings can be an effective complementary treatment for mental health disorders. We investigated the effects of a six-week-focused meditation training on emotion and attention regulation in undergraduates randomly allocated to a meditation, a relaxation, or a wait-list control group. Assessment comprised a discrimination task that investigates the relationship between attentional load and emotional processing and self-report measures. For emotion regulation, results showed greater reduction in emotional interference in the low attentional load condition in meditators, particularly compared to relaxation. Only meditators presented a significant association between amount of weekly practice and the reduction in emotion interference in the task and significantly reduced image ratings of negative valence and arousal, perceived anxiety and difficulty during the task, and state and trait-anxiety. For attention regulation, response bias during the task was analyzed through signal detection theory. After training, meditation and relaxation significantly reduced bias in the high attentional load condition. Importantly, there was a dose-response effect on general bias: the lowest in meditation, increasing linearly across relaxation and wait-list. Only meditators reduced omissions in a concentrated attention test. Focused meditation seems to be an effective training for emotion and attention regulation and an alternative for treatments in the mental health context.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

The Improvement of Emotion and Attention Regulation after a 6-Week Training of Focused Meditation: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Menezes

Couto

Buratto

et al. 2013

Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

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show abstract

“…Please note that these are relative differences in activation, such that in the control condition, the amygdala is quite suppressed compared to baseline. The amygdala is known to undergo suppression compared to a resting baseline during an attention-demanding task (such as detecting letters in a noise pattern) (Morawetz et al, 2010; Stjepanovic et al, 2011). Thus, we interpret the less negative amygdala response to fearful face and house stimuli as a small break from the suppression of the amygdala.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amygdala, pulvinar, and inferior parietal cortex contribute to early processing of faces without awareness

Troiani¹,

Schultz²

2013

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The goals of the present study were 2-fold. First, we wished to investigate the neural correlates of stimulus-driven processing of stimuli strongly suppressed from awareness and in the absence of top-down influences. We accomplished this using a novel approach in which participants performed an orthogonal task atop a flash suppression noise image to prevent top-down search. Second, we wished to investigate the extent to which amygdala responses differentiate between suppressed stimuli (fearful faces and houses) based on their motivational relevance. Using continuous flash suppression (CFS) in conjunction with fMRI, we presented fearful faces, houses, and a no stimulus control to one eye while participants performed an orthogonal task that appeared atop the flashing Mondrian image presented to the opposite eye. In 29 adolescents, we show activation in subcortical regions, including the superior colliculus, amygdala, thalamus, and hippocampus for suppressed objects (fearful faces and houses) compared to a no stimulus control. Suppressed stimuli showed less activation compared to a no stimulus control in early visual cortex (EVC), indicating that object information was being suppressed from this region. Additionally, we find no activation in regions associated with conscious processing of these percepts (fusiform gyrus and/or parahippocampal cortex) as assessed by mean activations and multi-voxel patterns. A psychophysiological interaction analysis (PPI) that seeded the amygdala showed task-specific (fearful faces greater than houses) modulation of right pulvinar and left inferior parietal cortex. Taken together, our results support a role for the amygdala in stimulus-driven attentional guidance toward objects of relevance and a potential mechanism for successful suppression of rivalrous stimuli.

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“…Furthermore, it has been shown that diverting attention suppresses amygdala responses to human faces [71]. The congruent activation time course of the pulvinar thalamus could be associated with a form of attention shift away from the emotionally unsettling features of the presented content.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased Neural Habituation in the Amygdala and Orbitofrontal Cortex in Social Anxiety Disorder Revealed by fMRI

et al. 2012

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A characterizing symptom of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is increased emotional reactivity towards potential social threat in combination with impaired emotion and stress regulation. While several neuroimaging studies have linked SAD with hyperreactivity in limbic brain regions when exposed to emotional faces, little is known about habituation in both the amygdala and neocortical regulation areas. 15 untreated SAD patients and 15 age- and gender-matched healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during repeated blocks of facial emotion () and object discrimination tasks (). Emotion processing networks were defined by a task-related contrast (). Linear regression was employed for assessing habituation effects in these regions. In both groups, the employed paradigm robustly activated the emotion processing and regulation network, including the amygdalae and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Statistically significant habituation effects were found in the amygdalae, OFC, and pulvinar thalamus of SAD patients. No such habituation was found in healthy controls. Concurrent habituation in the medial OFC and the amygdalae of SAD patients as shown in this study suggests intact functional integrity and successful short-term down-regulation of neural activation in brain areas responsible for emotion processing. Initial hyperactivation may be explained by an insufficient habituation to new stimuli during the first seconds of exposure. In addition, our results highlight the relevance of the orbitofrontal cortex in social anxiety disorders.

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Diverting Attention Suppresses Human Amygdala Responses to Faces

Cited by 25 publications

References 90 publications

The Improvement of Emotion and Attention Regulation after a 6-Week Training of Focused Meditation: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The Improvement of Emotion and Attention Regulation after a 6-Week Training of Focused Meditation: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Amygdala, pulvinar, and inferior parietal cortex contribute to early processing of faces without awareness

Increased Neural Habituation in the Amygdala and Orbitofrontal Cortex in Social Anxiety Disorder Revealed by fMRI

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