Decreased differential activity in the amygdala in response to fearful expressions in Type D personality

Summary Recent advances in functional brain imaging offer unique opportunities to explore the neurofunctional basis of tools used to assess personality differences which have proven their clinical usefulness. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, the focus was on the amygdala a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neurophysiologie clinique 2008-06, Vol.38 (3), p.163-169
Main Authors: de Gelder, B, van de Riet, W.A.C, Grèzes, J, Denollet, J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Affect - physiology
Amygdala
Amygdala - metabolism
Amygdala - physiopathology
Amygdale
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive science
Depression - metabolism
Depression - physiopathology
Depression - psychology
Emotion
Facial Expression
Fear - psychology
fMRI
Humans
Inhibition (Psychology)
Injuries of the nervous system and the skull. Diseases due to physical agents
IRMf
Life Sciences
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Medical sciences
Neurology
Neurons and Cognition
Personality Disorders - metabolism
Personality Disorders - physiopathology
Personality Disorders - psychology
Personnalité de Type D
Social Behavior
Surveys and Questionnaires
Traumas. Diseases due to physical agents
Type D personality
Émotion
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Summary:Summary Recent advances in functional brain imaging offer unique opportunities to explore the neurofunctional basis of tools used to assess personality differences which have proven their clinical usefulness. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, the focus was on the amygdala activation and we investigated whether individual differences in activity of the amygdala following presentation of emotional expressions in the face and the whole body may be systematically related to the presence of Type D (distressed) personality or to its constituting factors, Negative Affectivity (NA) and Social Inhibition (SI). Our results show that the observed difference in amygdala activity between fearful and neutral expressions was present in participants that did not meet the criteria for Type D personality, while this effect was absent in participants that could be classified as Type D personality. Our correlation analyses further showed that the activation in the left amygdala elicited by fearful versus neutral bodily expressions correlated negatively with the Negative Affectivity score. The same pattern was observed for the right amygdala for fearful facial and bodily expressions when contrasted with neutral facial and bodily expressions.
ISSN:0987-7053
1769-7131
DOI:10.1016/j.neucli.2008.03.002