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Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access published online on April 9, 2007
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, doi:10.1093/scan/nsm008
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© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Amygdala contribution to selective dimensions of emotion

Gary G. Berntson1, Antoine Bechara2, Hanna Damasio3, Daniel Tranel4 and John T. Cacioppo5

1Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry & Pediatrics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 43210, 2Department of Psychology and the Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, and the Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, 3Department of Psychology and Dornsife Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, 90089, 4Departments of Neurology and Psychology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 52242, and 5Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 60637, USA

The amygdala has been implicated in emotional processes, although the precise nature of the emotional deficits following amygdala lesions remains to be fully elucidated. Cognitive disturbances in the perception, recognition or memory of emotional stimuli have been suggested by some, whereas others have proposed changes in emotional arousal. To address this issue, measures of emotional arousal and valence (positivity and negativity) to a graded series of emotional pictures were obtained from patients with lesions of the amygdala and from a clinical contrast group with lesions that spared this structure. Relative to the contrast group, patients with damage to the amygdala evidenced a complete lack of an arousal gradient across negative stimuli, although they displayed a typical arousal gradient to positive stimuli. These results were not attributable to the inability of amygdala patients to process the hostile or hospitable nature of the stimuli, as the amygdala group accurately recognized and categorized both positive and negative features of the stimuli. The relative lack of emotional arousal to negative stimuli may account for many of the clinical features of amygdala lesions.

Keywords: affect; amygdala; arousal; emotion; valence; lesion

Correspondence should be addressed to Gary G. Berntson, Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, 1835 Neil Avenue, Columbus, 43210 OH USA. E-mail: berntson{at}osu.edu

Received November 10, 2006. Accepted March 9, 2007.


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