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Linguistic threat activates the human amygdala.

N Isenberg1, D Silbersweig, A Engelien

  • 1Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY 10021, USA. nisenberg@jfk.hbocvan.com

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|September 1, 1999
PubMed
Summary

The amygdala processes threat in language, showing its role in emotional responses to words. This research highlights the amygdala's function in evaluating linguistic danger signals.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Psycholinguistics

Background:

  • The amygdala is known for processing fear and aggression in animals.
  • Human studies link the amygdala to nonverbal and paralinguistic emotional cues.
  • Evidence for the amygdala's role in processing linguistic emotional cues is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the amygdala's neural activity during the processing of linguistic threat.
  • To identify the brain's response to emotionally salient language.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a modified Stroop task with healthy volunteers.
  • Employed H(2)(15)O positron-emission tomography (PET) for high-sensitivity neuroimaging.
  • Measured neural activity while participants named colors of threat and neutral words.

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Main Results:

  • Significant bilateral amygdalar activation observed when processing threat words compared to neutral words.
  • Associated brain activity detected in sensory-evaluative and motor-planning regions.
  • Demonstrated amygdala's role in processing danger elicited by language.

Conclusions:

  • The amygdala is crucial for processing linguistic threat.
  • Reinforces the amygdala's role in modulating emotional perception and response.
  • Suggests conserved emotional evaluation mechanisms across phylogenetic and linguistic evolution.