Repeated fMRI in measuring the activation of the amygdala without habituation when viewing faces displaying negative emotions

Abstract

Functional imaging studies of affective disorders have demonstrated abnormal activity in the amygdala in response to emotionally salient stimuli. Since in other studies this response has been shown to habituate during the scanning session, it is not clear if it may be of use in monitoring disease progression or remission, or in monitoring the effects of therapy, as habituation may confound normalisation of response. We investigated here amygdala activation in healthy participants exposed to displays of emotional facial expressions in a sample of N = 31 individuals assessed twice in an interval of three weeks. At this interval no habituation could be detected, suggesting the validity of this imaging assay in repeated assessments of amygdalar reactivity. However, the fusiform gyrus and the inferior frontal lobes showed decreases in activations that may be related to the role of these areas in encoding visual and emotional aspects of the stimuli.