From Specificity to Sensitivity: How Acute Stress Affects Amygdala Processing of Biologically Salient Stimuli

Background A vital component of an organism's response to acute stress is a surge in vigilance that serves to optimize the detection and assessment of threats to its homeostasis. The amygdala is thought to regulate this process, but in humans, acute stress and amygdala function have up to now o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biological psychiatry (1969) 2009-10, Vol.66 (7), p.649-655
Main Authors: van Marle, Hein J.F, Hermans, Erno J, Qin, Shaozheng, Fernández, Guillén
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Amygdala
Amygdala - blood supply
Amygdala - physiopathology
Analysis of Variance
Anxiety disorders. Neuroses
Biological and medical sciences
Blood Pressure - physiology
emotion
Emotions - physiology
Facial Expression
Female
fMRI
Heart Rate - physiology
human
Humans
Hydrocortisone - metabolism
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Medical sciences
Neuropsychological Tests
Oxygen - blood
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Photic Stimulation - methods
Post-traumatic stress disorder
posttraumatic stress disorder
Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Saliva - metabolism
Sensitivity and Specificity
stress
Stress, Psychological - pathology
Stress, Psychological - physiopathology
Young Adult
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Summary:Background A vital component of an organism's response to acute stress is a surge in vigilance that serves to optimize the detection and assessment of threats to its homeostasis. The amygdala is thought to regulate this process, but in humans, acute stress and amygdala function have up to now only been studied in isolation. Hence, we developed an integrated design using functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the immediate effects of controlled stress induction on amygdala function. Methods In 27 healthy female participants, we studied brain responses to emotional facial stimuli, embedded in an either acutely stressful or neutral context by means of adjoining movie clips. Results A variety of physiological and psychological measures confirmed successful induction of moderate levels of acute stress. More importantly, this context manipulation shifted the amygdala toward higher sensitivity as well as lower specificity, that is, stress induction augmented amygdala responses to equally high levels for threat-related and positively valenced stimuli, thereby diminishing a threat-selective response pattern. Additionally, stress amplified sensory processing in early visual regions and the face responsive area of the fusiform gyrus but not in a frontal region involved in task execution. Conclusions A shift of amygdala function toward heightened sensitivity with lower levels of specificity suggests a state of indiscriminate hypervigilance under stress. Although this represents initial survival value in adverse situations where the risk for false negatives in the detection of potential threats should be minimized, it might similarly play a causative role in the sequelae of traumatic events.
ISSN:0006-3223
1873-2402
DOI:10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.05.014