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Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity

When intentionally pushed or insulted, one can either flee from the provoker or retaliate. The implementation of such fight-or-flight decisions is a central aspect in the genesis and evolution of aggression episodes, yet it is usually investigated only indirectly or in nonsocial situations. In the p...

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Autores principales: Buades-Rotger, Macià, Beyer, Frederike, Krämer, Ulrike M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Society for Neuroscience 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5485378/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28660251
http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0337-16.2017
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author Buades-Rotger, Macià
Beyer, Frederike
Krämer, Ulrike M.
author_facet Buades-Rotger, Macià
Beyer, Frederike
Krämer, Ulrike M.
author_sort Buades-Rotger, Macià
collection PubMed
description When intentionally pushed or insulted, one can either flee from the provoker or retaliate. The implementation of such fight-or-flight decisions is a central aspect in the genesis and evolution of aggression episodes, yet it is usually investigated only indirectly or in nonsocial situations. In the present fMRI study, we aimed to distinguish brain regions associated with aggressive and avoidant responses to interpersonal provocation in humans. Participants (thirty-six healthy young women) could either avoid or face a highly (HP) and a lowly (LP) provoking opponent in a competitive reaction time task: the fight-or-escape (FOE) paradigm. Subjects avoided the HP more often, but retaliated when facing her. Moreover, they chose to fight the HP more quickly, and showed increased heart rate (HR) right before confronting her. Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and sensorimotor cortex were more active when participants decided to fight, whereas the mentalizing network was engaged when deciding to avoid. Importantly, avoiding the HP relative to the LP was associated with both higher activation in the right basolateral amygdala and lower relative activity in several mentalizing regions [e.g., medial and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), temporal-parietal junction (TPJ)]. These results suggest that avoidant responses to provocation might result from heightened threat anticipation and are associated with reduced perspective taking. Furthermore, our study helps to reconcile conflicting findings on the role of the mentalizing network, the amygdala, and the OFC in aggression.
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spelling pubmed-54853782017-06-28 Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity Buades-Rotger, Macià Beyer, Frederike Krämer, Ulrike M. eNeuro New Research When intentionally pushed or insulted, one can either flee from the provoker or retaliate. The implementation of such fight-or-flight decisions is a central aspect in the genesis and evolution of aggression episodes, yet it is usually investigated only indirectly or in nonsocial situations. In the present fMRI study, we aimed to distinguish brain regions associated with aggressive and avoidant responses to interpersonal provocation in humans. Participants (thirty-six healthy young women) could either avoid or face a highly (HP) and a lowly (LP) provoking opponent in a competitive reaction time task: the fight-or-escape (FOE) paradigm. Subjects avoided the HP more often, but retaliated when facing her. Moreover, they chose to fight the HP more quickly, and showed increased heart rate (HR) right before confronting her. Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and sensorimotor cortex were more active when participants decided to fight, whereas the mentalizing network was engaged when deciding to avoid. Importantly, avoiding the HP relative to the LP was associated with both higher activation in the right basolateral amygdala and lower relative activity in several mentalizing regions [e.g., medial and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), temporal-parietal junction (TPJ)]. These results suggest that avoidant responses to provocation might result from heightened threat anticipation and are associated with reduced perspective taking. Furthermore, our study helps to reconcile conflicting findings on the role of the mentalizing network, the amygdala, and the OFC in aggression. Society for Neuroscience 2017-06-27 /pmc/articles/PMC5485378/ /pubmed/28660251 http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0337-16.2017 Text en Copyright © 2017 Buades-Rotger et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
spellingShingle New Research
Buades-Rotger, Macià
Beyer, Frederike
Krämer, Ulrike M.
Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity
title Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity
title_full Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity
title_fullStr Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity
title_full_unstemmed Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity
title_short Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity
title_sort avoidant responses to interpersonal provocation are associated with increased amygdala and decreased mentalizing network activity
topic New Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5485378/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28660251
http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0337-16.2017
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