Search

Current concepts of the extended amygdala posit that basolateral to central amygdala projections mediate fear‐conditioned autonomic alerting, whereas projections to the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis mediate sustained anxiety. Using diffusion tensor imaging tractography in humans, we show that microstructure of the stria terminalis correlates with an orienting bias towards threat in a saccade decision task, providing the first evidence that this circuit supports decisions guiding evaluation of threatening stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amnesic patients can re‐experience emotions elicited by forgotten events, suggesting that brain systems for episodic and emotional memory are independent. However, the range of such emotional memories remains under‐investigated (most studies employing just positive–negative emotion dyads), and executive function may also play a role in the re‐experience of emotions. This is the first investigation of the intensity of the emotional re‐experience of a range of discrete emotions (anger, fear, sadness, and happiness) for a group of amnesic patients. Twenty Korsakoff syndrome (KS) patients and 20 neurologically normal controls listened to four novel emotional vignettes selectively eliciting the four basic emotions. Emotional experience was measured using pen‐and‐paper Visual Analogue Mood Scales and episodic memory using verbal recollections. After 30 min, the recollection of stories was severely impaired for the patient group, but the emotional re‐experience was no different from that of controls. Notably, there was no relationship between episodic recall and the intensity of the four emotions, such that even profoundly amnesic patients reported moderate levels of the target emotion. Exploratory analyses revealed negative correlations between the intensity of basic emotions and executive functions (e.g., cognitive flexibility and response inhibition) for controls but not patients. The results suggest that discrete emotions can be re‐experienced independently of episodic memory, and that the re‐experience of certain discrete emotions appears to be dampened by executive control. KS patients with absent or mild cognitive symptoms should benefit from emotion‐regulation interventions aimed at reducing the recognized affective burden associated with their episodic memory deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parkinson's disease is known for its effects on sensorimotor coordination caused by degeneration of the nigrostriatal dopamine pathway. Dopamine-innervated areas of the ventral striatum also become compromised in Parkinson's disease, and little is known about the potential impact of this pathology on motivational processes mediated by the mesolimbic dopamine system. The current study tested the hypothesis that patients with Parkinson's disease would show a deficit in appetitive motivational arousal. Patients with Parkinson's disease and age-matched healthy controls completed a visual discrimination task in which control and appetitive food images (incidental to the task) were presented in the background. Response rate changes indicated appetitive motivational arousal. The healthy controls showed an increase in response rate on the task when appetitive food cues were present compared with control stimuli. In contrast, the Parkinson's disease group showed an inverse pattern to the healthy controls. The reduction in appetitive motivation correlated with an individual's Parkinsonian symptomology. Patients with Parkinson's disease demonstrated an impairment in appetitive motivational arousal consistent with the progression of dopaminergic degeneration across the course of the disease. Dysfunction of this system affects quality of life in Parkinson's disease, and a blunting of the anticipatory motivation may contribute to the high prevalence of depression in Parkinson's disease. © 2011 Movement Disorder Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]