According to a study conducted by Ralph Adolphs, Simon Baron-Cohen, and Daniel Tranel, amygdala damage causes impaired recognition of social emotions. They tested the recognition of basic emotions, complex mental states, and social emotions from whole faces and eyes using an established set of stimuli. According to this, amygdala damage impairs recognition of emotions in general, but it impairs recognition of complex mental states (thoughtful, quizzical, bored, arrogant, admiring, guilt, flirty) more than basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, etc). Also, it was found that the impairment occurred both when the subjects were shown whole faces and just the eye region. Lastly, the main finding was that damage to the amygdala impairs recognition specifically of social emotions, which were a subset of the complex mental states mentioned above (guilt, arrogance, admiration, flirtatiousness), again by both the whole face and by the eye region.
These findings have certain implications regarding autism. Since autistic people often have impaired recognition of social emotions (similar to subjects in the study), this study’s results suggest that amygdala dysfunction affects social cognition of autistic individuals.
The conclusions from this research seem quite convincing, but it would be interesting to see a wider range of emotions tested, and more specific definitions or methods of assigning traits under categories of “complex mental states” and “social emotions.”
Interesting study. There has been a lot of research on the functions of the amygdala and it definitely has a strong role in emotion management. It's interesting that the amygdala has been found to have an effect on the recognition/perception of emotions as well as maintaining its role as the emotional regulator inside the brain.
ReplyDeleteThe implications of this on autism lead me to believe that one day, many types of psychological disorders may be cured and resolved. If we can understand the basis behind basic neurological functioning, we will eventually understand the "wiring" of the human being, and thus be able to fix the areas of "outages." Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but hey, we're getting closer and closer, no?
I agree with Faith in that understanding the basics is key in fixing processes that go awry in the brain.
ReplyDeleteI have always loved to see studies being done on autism since my best friend's brother is autistic. Getting to know him has made me interested in just what exactly is different about his brain from ours. I definitely notice things about him that you have described in your summary and have had many instances where he does not comprehend my emotions correctly. For example, if I giggle at something silly he says he asks why I am laughing at him. I enjoyed learning about how the amygdala plays a role in this behavior.
I also agree with you that a wider range of emotions tested would yield a better overview and help pinpoint neural functions more specifically.