Cargando…

Amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment

Humans and other animals routinely identify and attend to sensory stimuli so as to rapidly acquire rewards or avoid aversive experiences. Emotional arousal, a process mediated by the amygdala, can enhance attention to stimuli in a non-spatial manner. However, amygdala neural activity was recently sh...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Peck, Christopher J, Salzman, C Daniel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4238057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25358090
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04478
_version_ 1782345454379335680
author Peck, Christopher J
Salzman, C Daniel
author_facet Peck, Christopher J
Salzman, C Daniel
author_sort Peck, Christopher J
collection PubMed
description Humans and other animals routinely identify and attend to sensory stimuli so as to rapidly acquire rewards or avoid aversive experiences. Emotional arousal, a process mediated by the amygdala, can enhance attention to stimuli in a non-spatial manner. However, amygdala neural activity was recently shown to encode spatial information about reward-predictive stimuli, and to correlate with spatial attention allocation. If representing the motivational significance of sensory stimuli within a spatial framework reflects a general principle of amygdala function, then spatially selective neural responses should also be elicited by sensory stimuli threatening aversive events. Recordings from amygdala neurons were therefore obtained while monkeys directed spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment. Neural responses encoded spatial information similarly for stimuli associated with both valences of reinforcement, and responses reflected spatial attention allocation. The amygdala therefore may act to enhance spatial attention to sensory stimuli associated with rewarding or aversive experiences. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04478.001
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4238057
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2014
publisher eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-42380572014-11-21 Amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment Peck, Christopher J Salzman, C Daniel eLife Neuroscience Humans and other animals routinely identify and attend to sensory stimuli so as to rapidly acquire rewards or avoid aversive experiences. Emotional arousal, a process mediated by the amygdala, can enhance attention to stimuli in a non-spatial manner. However, amygdala neural activity was recently shown to encode spatial information about reward-predictive stimuli, and to correlate with spatial attention allocation. If representing the motivational significance of sensory stimuli within a spatial framework reflects a general principle of amygdala function, then spatially selective neural responses should also be elicited by sensory stimuli threatening aversive events. Recordings from amygdala neurons were therefore obtained while monkeys directed spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment. Neural responses encoded spatial information similarly for stimuli associated with both valences of reinforcement, and responses reflected spatial attention allocation. The amygdala therefore may act to enhance spatial attention to sensory stimuli associated with rewarding or aversive experiences. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04478.001 eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2014-10-30 /pmc/articles/PMC4238057/ /pubmed/25358090 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04478 Text en Copyright © 2014, Peck and Salzman http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Peck, Christopher J
Salzman, C Daniel
Amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment
title Amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment
title_full Amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment
title_fullStr Amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment
title_full_unstemmed Amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment
title_short Amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment
title_sort amygdala neural activity reflects spatial attention towards stimuli promising reward or threatening punishment
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4238057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25358090
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04478
work_keys_str_mv AT peckchristopherj amygdalaneuralactivityreflectsspatialattentiontowardsstimulipromisingrewardorthreateningpunishment
AT salzmancdaniel amygdalaneuralactivityreflectsspatialattentiontowardsstimulipromisingrewardorthreateningpunishment