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Abstract:
Abstract: Objective: Bilateral, not just unilateral amygdala
(AMG) is needed for fear expression recognition. Cingulate gyrus
(CG) is also well placed anatomically to be involved in emotion
recognition. We test the hypothesis that anterior and middle CG are
involved in fear recognition, by studying a case with bilateral
anterior and middle CG (Brodmann's area 24, CG24) as well as right
AMG lesion. Method: LJM, a 41-year old Chinese schizophrenic had
stereo-toxic brain operation resulting in lesions in bilateral CG24
and right AMG. He was compared with a group of other schizophrenics
and normal controls, in a task to identify emotional expression on
faces, ranging from happy, surprise, fear, sad, disgust, to anger
in a series of facial expressions with prototypes posed by a
professional actor and graded transitions between emotions
generated by computer. Result: LJM's perception of both fear and
disgust was significantly different from that of normal controls
(respectively, z=5.54, p<0.001; Z=2.31, P<0.05), but
compared with other schizophrenics only the perception of fear was
significantly different (z=3.49, p<0.001). His ability in the
perception of gaze direction, age, gender, and identification of
familiar faces are all normal. Conclusion: LJM manifested selective
impairment of fear expression recognition. Because of unilateral
AMG damage has been found to be insufficient to cause this
impairment, the result support the hypothesis that bilateral CG24
is involved in processing of fear emotion.
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