Abstract
Background
The startle eye-blink is the cross-species translational tool to study defensive behavior
in affective neuroscience with relevance to a broad range of neuropsychiatric conditions.
It makes use of the startle reflex, a defensive response elicited by an immediate,
unexpected sensory event, which is potentiated when evoked during threat and inhibited
during safety. In contrast to skin conductance responses or pupil dilation, modulation
of the startle reflex is valence specific. Rodent models implicate a modulatory pathway
centering on the brainstem (i.e., nucleus reticularis pontis caudalis) and the centromedial
amygdala as key hubs for flexibly integrating valence information into differential
startle magnitude. Technical advances now allow for the investigation of this pathway
using combined facial electromyography and functional magnetic resonance imaging in
humans.
Methods
We employed a multimethodological approach combining trial-by-trial facial eye-blink
startle electromyography and brainstem- and amygdala-specific functional magnetic
resonance imaging in humans. Validating the robustness and reproducibility of our
findings, we provide evidence from two different paradigms (fear-potentiated startle,
affect-modulated startle) in two independent studies (N = 43 and N = 55).
Results
We provide key evidence for a conserved neural pathway for acoustic startle modulation
between humans and rodents. Furthermore, we provide the crucial direct link between
electromyography startle eye-blink magnitude and neural response strength. Finally,
we demonstrate a dissociation between arousal-specific amygdala responding and triggered
valence-specific amygdala responding.
Conclusions
We provide neurobiologically based evidence for the strong translational value of
startle responding and argue that startle-evoked amygdala responding and its affective
modulation may hold promise as an important novel tool for affective neuroscience
and its clinical translation.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 06, 2019
Accepted:
July 25,
2019
Received in revised form:
July 15,
2019
Received:
March 22,
2019
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 Society of Biological Psychiatry.
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- Advances in Mapping the Startle Eye-Blink Response Onto Neural CircuitsBiological PsychiatryVol. 87Issue 6
- PreviewCross-species translational research allows us to further knowledge regarding the biological mechanisms underlying psychiatric symptoms (1,2). In neuroscience, such research can bridge the precise probing of neural circuits in animal models with the less invasive work performed in humans using neuroimaging, with the goal of mapping human emotions to neural functioning. Affective modulation measured with startle is a prime example of a translational paradigm that can be measured across human and nonhuman species using the eye-blink startle response measured with facial electromyography (EMG) in humans or whole-body startle in animals such as rodents.
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