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Neuroimaging Study of the Human Amygdala - Toward an Understanding of Emotional and Stress Responses -

Tetsuya IIDAKA

Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Nagoya 466-8550, Japan

(Received 20 November 2006 / Accepted 16 February 2007 / Published 20 November 2007)

Abstract

The amygdala plays a critical role in the neural system involved in emotional responses and conditioned fear. The dysfunction of this system is thought to be a cause of several neuropsychiatric disorders. A neuroimaging study provides a unique opportunity for noninvasive investigation of the human amygdala. We studied the activity of this structure in normal subjects and patients with schizophrenia by using the face recognition task. Our results showed that the amygdala was activated by presentation of face stimuli, and negative face activated the amygdala to a greater extent than a neutral face. Under the happy face condition, the activation of the amygdala was higher in the schizophrenic patients than in control subjects. A single nucleotide polymorphism in the regulatory region of the serotonin type 3 receptor gene had modulatory effects on the amygdaloid activity. The emotion regulation had a significant impact on neural interaction between the amygdala and prefrontal cortices. Thus, studies on the human amygdala would greatly contribute to the elucidation of the neural system that determines emotional and stress responses. To clarify the relevance of the neural dysfunction and neuropsychiatric disorders, further studies using physiological, genetic, and hormonal approaches are essential.

Copyright (c) 2007 The Japan Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research

Keywords

fMRI, activation, face, polymorphism, serotonin, expression, prefrontal cortex

DOI: 10.1585/pfr.2.S1006

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References

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This paper may be cited as follows:

Tetsuya IIDAKA, Plasma Fusion Res. 2, S1006 (2007).