Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 26, Issue 35, Pages 8915-8922Publisher
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3048-05.2006
Keywords
amygdala; classical conditioning; emotion; fear; reward; fMRI
Categories
Funding
- NIMH NIH HHS [MH63901, MH71746, K08 MH071746, R01 MH063901] Funding Source: Medline
- NINDS NIH HHS [R56 NS021135, R01 NS021135, R37 NS021135, NS21135] Funding Source: Medline
- PHS HHS [066737] Funding Source: Medline
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The functional role of the human amygdala in the evaluation of emotional facial expressions is unclear. Previous animal and human research shows that the amygdala participates in processing positive and negative reinforcement as well as in learning predictive associations between stimuli and subsequent reinforcement. Thus, amygdala response to facial expressions could reflect the processing of primary reinforcement or emotional learning. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested the hypothesis that amygdala response to facial expressions is driven by emotional association learning. We show that the amygdala is more responsive to learning object-emotion associations from happy and fearful facial expressions than it is to the presentation of happy and fearful facial expressions alone. The results provide evidence that the amygdala uses social signals to rapidly and flexibly learn threatening and rewarding associations that ultimately serve to enhance survival.
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