1. The Role of Amygdala in Self-Conscious Emotions in a Patient With Acquired Bilateral Damage
- Author
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Luca Piretti, Edoardo Pappaianni, Alberta Lunardelli, Irene Zorzenon, Maja Ukmar, Valentina Pesavento, Raffaella Ida Rumiati, Remo Job, and Alessandro Grecucci
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,Shame ,Amygdala ,050105 experimental psychology ,lcsh:RC321-571 ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Self-conscious emotions ,emotion recognition ,medicine ,Relevance (law) ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Emotion recognition ,lcsh:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Original Research ,media_common ,General Neuroscience ,05 social sciences ,shame ,amygdala, moral emotions, shame, emotion recognition ,amygdala ,Ambiguity ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia e Psicologia Fisiologica ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Feeling ,Guilt ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Social cognitive theory ,Neuroscience ,moral emotions ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Shame plays a fundamental role in the regulation of our social behavior. One intriguing question is whether amygdala might play a role in processing this emotion. In the present single-case study, we tested a patient with acquired damage of bilateral amygdalae and surrounding areas as well as healthy controls on shame processing and other social cognitive tasks. Results revealed that the patient's subjective experience of shame, but not of guilt, was more reduced than in controls, only when social standards were violated, while it was not different than controls in case of moral violations. The impairment in discriminating between normal social situations and violations also emerged. Taken together, these findings suggest that the role of the amygdala in processing shame might reflect its relevance in resolving ambiguity and uncertainty, in order to correctly detect social violations and to generate shame feelings.
- Published
- 2020