Poster No:
607
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Martina Trisia Cinca-Tomás1, Emmanouela Kosteletou Kassotaki1, Jordi Costa-Faidella1, Carles Escera1, Judith Domínguez-Borràs1
Institutions:
1Brainlab Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Barcelona, Barcelona
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Carles Escera
Brainlab Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group
Barcelona, Barcelona
Introduction:
Neural models for emotional processing in vision suggest the existence of ultrafast magnocellular routes to the amygdala, allowing efficient threat detection and subsequent adaptive behavior in humans. These routes are known to mediate coarse visual processing, eliciting differential responses to threat than other more fine-grained pathways. In the auditory domain, animal evidence suggests the existence of similar routes for threat detection, but they remain unknown in humans. Using fear conditioning, a procedure that depends on amygdala response, we investigated whether magnocellular pathways to the amygdala, particularly sensitive to high temporal modulations, mediate auditory and pupillary responses to threat in humans that may differ from parvocellular pathways, sensitive to low temporal modulations. Electroencephalography and pupillometry data were recorded from 28 healthy participants while they detected voices.
Methods:
Voices were either paired (conditioned – CS+) or unpaired (not conditioned – CS-) with an unpleasant white noise (unconditioned stimulus - US), which determined their threatening significance. All voices were amplitude modulated at either high (40 Hz) or low (10 Hz) rates, aiming at differentially activating fast (magnocellular) versus slower (parvocellular) auditory pathways, respectively. We analyzed behavior (e.g. stimulus ratings, d-prime – d'), pupillary size, and EEG activity for conditions of interest. This allowed us to dissociate pupillary and neural activity potentially elicited by each of the hypothesized emotion auditory pathways.
Results:
Behavioral and pupillary results suggest that fear conditioning was effective; participants were aware of the pairing between the conditioned and the US stimuli (p < .001), they rated the conditioned stimuli as more negative and arousing than non-conditioned stimuli (p < .01; p < .001), and showed differential pupil dilations (p < .05), auditory responses (p < .05), as well as differential d' scores (p = .013) and response times (p < .01) for CS+ versus CS- stimuli. Critically, threatening stimuli at high amplitude modulation (AM) rates elicited earlier auditory (p = .031) and pupillary (p < .05) responses than those presented at low AM. Interestingly, the early differential pupillary effect found for threat responses rated at high AM in interaction with participants' trait anxiety levels and stimulus valence ratings explained variations in participant's d' scores (F(7,20) = 4.977, p = .002, R2 = 0.635; Adjusted R2 = 0.508).
Conclusions:
These results are compatible with faster cortical responses to threat when encoded through magnocellular inputs to the amygdala, and suggest the existence of auditory routes for threat detection in humans, similar to those in vision. Thus, high temporal modulations in sounds may constitute an optimal tool to investigate putative fast auditory routes to the amygdala, similarly to other stimulus parameters (e.g. low spatial frequencies) traditionally used in vision.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotional Perception 1
Emotion and Motivation Other 2
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
EEG
Keywords:
Electroencephaolography (EEG)
Emotions
Sub-Cortical
Other - fear-conditioning
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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