Parkinson's Disease, Psychophysiology, and the Amygdala

帕金森病、心理生理学和杏仁核

• 批准号: 6993762
• 负责人: KIMBERLY M MILLER
• 金额: $ 2.98万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-07-01 至 2007-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6993762
• 关键词: Parkinson' s disease; amygdala; behavioral /social science research tag; brain electrical activity; brain morphology; clinical research; emotions; fear; human subject; neural information processing; neuropathology; patient oriented research; predoctoral investigator; psychophysiology; social perception; startle reaction; stimulus /response

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Preliminary studies from our laboratory suggest that Parkinson patients may demonstrate a significantly diminished emotional reactivity to fear-inducing emotional materials compared to their healthy counterparts. This may be related to the fact that the amygdala has been shown to exhibit pathology in Parkinson's disease (PD), and is a neural structure that plays a key role in processing and interpreting signals of threat in the environment. As such, the proposed study will test the following hypotheses: a) Parkinson patients will demonstrate reduced emotional reactivity, as indexed by emotional modulation of startle, to both verbal and nonverbal fear-inducing stimuli; b) emotional reactivity to fear inducing materials will correlate with amygdala volume; and c) reduced emotional reactivity will correlate with an increased propensity for families to inaccurately view their Parkinson family member as depressed and unmotivated. These hypotheses will be tested through a method that is not confounded by deficits of overt expression in PD: emotional modulation of the startle eyeblink reflex. Increased understanding of emotional changes accompanying PD may prove to be clinically useful by reducing problems such as healthcare worker and family member misattributions that the Parkinson patient is "uninterested" or depressed due to lack of reaction. This proposal will also examine 1 potential neural mechanism for reduced emotional reactivity in PD, decreased amygdala volume, with the aim of increasing knowledge of neuropathological changes that may lead to emotional reactivity deficits in PD.

描述（由申请人提供）：我们实验室的初步研究表明，与健康患者相比，帕金森患者对引起恐惧的情绪材料的情绪反应可能显着减弱。这可能与杏仁核已被证明在帕金森病 (PD) 中表现出病理学有关，并且杏仁核是一种神经结构，在处理和解释环境中的威胁信号方面发挥着关键作用。因此，拟议的研究将测试以下假设：a）帕金森患者将表现出对语言和非语言恐惧诱发刺激的情绪反应性降低，以惊吓的情绪调节为指标； b) 对引起恐惧的材料的情绪反应与杏仁核体积相关； c) 情绪反应性降低与家庭错误地认为帕金森病家庭成员抑郁且缺乏动力的倾向增加相关。这些假设将通过一种不会因帕金森病中明显表达缺陷而混淆的方法进行检验：惊恐眨眼反射的情绪调节。增加对帕金森病伴随的情绪变化的了解可能在临床上有用，因为可以减少医护人员和家庭成员误认为帕金森患者“不感兴趣”或由于缺乏反应而感到沮丧等问题。该提案还将研究一种减少帕金森病情绪反应性、杏仁核体积减少的潜在神经机制，目的是增加对可能导致帕金森病情绪反应性缺陷的神经病理变化的了解。