Linked Life Data

15635411

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/15635411

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
7021
pubmed:dateCreated
2005-1-6
pubmed:abstractText
Ten years ago, we reported that SM, a patient with rare bilateral amygdala damage, showed an intriguing impairment in her ability to recognize fear from facial expressions. Since then, the importance of the amygdala in processing information about facial emotions has been borne out by a number of lesion and functional imaging studies. Yet the mechanism by which amygdala damage compromises fear recognition has not been identified. Returning to patient SM, we now show that her impairment stems from an inability to make normal use of information from the eye region of faces when judging emotions, a defect we trace to a lack of spontaneous fixations on the eyes during free viewing of faces. Although SM fails to look normally at the eye region in all facial expressions, her selective impairment in recognizing fear is explained by the fact that the eyes are the most important feature for identifying this emotion. Notably, SM's recognition of fearful faces became entirely normal when she was instructed explicitly to look at the eyes. This finding provides a mechanism to explain the amygdala's role in fear recognition, and points to new approaches for the possible rehabilitation of patients with defective emotion perception.
pubmed:commentsCorrections
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Jan
pubmed:issn
1476-4687
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:day
6
pubmed:volume
433
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
68-72
pubmed:dateRevised
2006-11-15
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2005
pubmed:articleTitle
A mechanism for impaired fear recognition after amygdala damage.
pubmed:affiliation
Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA. radolphs@hss.caltech.edu
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S., Case Reports, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't