Amygdala lesions in rhesus macaques decrease attention to threat

Evidence from animal and human studies has suggested that the amygdala plays a role in detecting threat and in directing attention to the eyes. Nevertheless, there has been no systematic investigation of whether the amygdala specifically facilitates attention to the eyes or whether other features ca...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2015-12, Vol.6 (1), p.10161-10161, Article 10161
Main Authors: Dal Monte, Olga, Costa, Vincent D., Noble, Pamela L., Murray, Elisabeth A., Averbeck, Bruno B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/1647/334/1874/1625
631/378/1457/1284
631/378/2649/1310
Amygdala
Amygdala - pathology
Amygdala - physiology
Animals
Attention
Emotions
Experiments
Facial Expression
Fixation, Ocular - physiology
Hostility
Humanities and Social Sciences
Lesions
Macaca mulatta
Male
Monkeys
Mouth
multidisciplinary
Nonverbal Communication - physiology
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Threats
Viewing
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Evidence from animal and human studies has suggested that the amygdala plays a role in detecting threat and in directing attention to the eyes. Nevertheless, there has been no systematic investigation of whether the amygdala specifically facilitates attention to the eyes or whether other features can also drive attention via amygdala processing. The goal of the present study was to examine the effects of amygdala lesions in rhesus monkeys on attentional capture by specific facial features, as well as gaze patterns and changes in pupil dilation during free viewing. Here we show reduced attentional capture by threat stimuli, specifically the mouth, and reduced exploration of the eyes in free viewing in monkeys with amygdala lesions. Our findings support a role for the amygdala in detecting threat signals and in directing attention to the eye region of faces when freely viewing different expressions. The amygdala in the medial temporal lobe of the human and non-human primate brain is known to process salient social stimuli and to mediate threat discrimination. Here, Dal Monte et al. show that rhesus monkeys with amygdala lesions have deficits in detecting threat signals and directing attention to the eye region of a conspecific's face.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms10161