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Neural Activity Associated with Monitoring the Oscillating Threat Value of a Tarantula

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Neural Activity Associated with Monitoring the Oscillating Threat Value of a Tarantula Neural activity associated with monitoring the oscillating threat value of a tarantula Dean Mobbsa,1, Rongjun Yua, James B. Rowea,b, Hannah Eicha, Oriel FeldmanHalla, and Tim Dalgleisha aCognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council-Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge CB2 7EF, United Kingdom; and bDepartment of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, United Kingdom Edited by Edward E. Smith, Columbia University, New York, NY, and approved October 13, 2010 (received for review June 24, 2010) Phylogenetic threats such as spiders evoke our deepest primitive whether there is a critical distinction between threat proximity and fears. When close or looming, such threats engage evolutionarily whether the threat level is on an escalating or descending trajec- conserved monitoring systems and defense reactions that promote tory. For example, a close threat moving away from us is liable to self-preservation. With the use of a modified behavioral approach elicit a different response to an equally close threat moving toward task within functional MRI, we show that, as a tarantula was placed us. Two further unexplored questions include what neural sub- closer to a subject’s foot, increased experiences of fear coincided strates are involved in monitoring any mismatch between threat/ with augmented activity in a cascade of fear-related brain networks fear expectations and actual threat/fear—a crucial mechanism including the periaqueductal gray, amygdala, and bed nucleus of the calibrating how the system deals with anticipated aversive events to stria terminalis. Activity in the amygdala was also associated with ensure that such predictions are accurate. Finally, to our knowl- underprediction of the tarantula’s threat value and, in addition to edge, no studies using phylogenetic threats have examined habit- the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, with monitoring the taran- uation of the fear system over time and whether greater fear of tula’s threat value as indexed by its direction of movement. Con- spiders results in sustained activation in core fear areas such as versely, the orbitofrontal cortex was engaged as the tarantula grew the midbrain. more distant, suggesting that this region emits safety signals or In the present study, we used functional MRI (fMRI) in expels fear. Our findings fractionate the neurobiological mecha- conjunction with a modified behavioral approach task to exam- nisms associated with basic fear and potentially illuminate the per- ine brain activation associated with these two putative functions turbed reactions that characterize clinical phobias. of the human fear network as healthy participants viewed a ta- COGNITIVE SCIENCES rantula spider being placed at varying distances from their foot. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND expectancy errors | imminence | distance When in the MRI scanner bore, participants placed their foot into a custom-built “imminence box” containing six compart- volutionary pressures have selected for mechanisms that en- ments separated by sliding partitions (Fig. 1A). Via a video feed, Ecourage the avoidance of close or looming threat (1–3). In participants watched a live and active tarantula (Lasiodora par- humans, this innate capacity is particularly evident with phyloge- ahybana; Fig. S1A) placed randomly into five of these compart- netic threats such as spiders, which rate among the most ubiqui- ments at distances of 1 to 18 cm, 19 to 36 cm, 37 to 54 cm, 55 to tous of phobias (4). For example, in everyday life it is common to 72 cm, and 73 to 90 cm from their foot (Fig. S1 B and C). Un- experience a primal surge of terror when a spider crawls within our beknownst to participants, they were actually viewing pre- personal space, yet we may observe a distant spider without trepi- recorded films of the spider in the different compartments, which dation. In the clinical setting, behavioral approach tasks are used were controlled for the movement of the spider (SI Experimental to expose phobic patients to phobogenic stimuli (e.g., spiders or Procedures). Each experimental trial commenced with viewing snakes) at varying distances to evaluate and treat their fear re- a schematic representation of the imminence box indicating sponses. Such approaching threats elicit precipitous increases in which compartment the tarantula would enter next. Participants subjective fear and autonomic arousal (5, 6), which are charac- then used a visual analog scale (VAS) to predict how afraid they teristics of the exaggerated emotional responses observed in would feel when subsequently viewing the tarantula in the in- phobic subjects. dicated compartment (i.e., expected fear). The participants next Research in rodents has shown that encountering a distant or saw the tarantula in the compartment and directly after, rated close natural predator (e.g., a cat) evokes distinct defense reac- how afraid they felt (i.e., experienced fear; Fig. S2). A strength of tions in the form of behavioral quiescence and vigorous flight, this behavioral approach task is the fact that the absolute prox- respectively (7). In humans, functional neuroimaging has begun imity of the phobogenic threat can be decoupled from its tra- to reveal the brain networks implicated in such situations of jectory, i.e., whether it is coming closer or moving away, thus immediate danger. One study showed that the active avoidance making this methodology an ideal test bed for exploring these of an artificial predator with the ability to chase, capture, and in- different components of threat. flict pain resulted in brain activity switching from ventromedial With the use of this paradigm, we pursued two primary hy- prefrontal cortex to the midbrain, including the periaqueductal potheses: first, increased proximity of the tarantula would in- gray (PAG), as the threat became more imminent (8). Two recent crease subjective fear ratings and progressively invoke the brain’s studies have also shown that tracking the increasing proximity of fear network, including the midbrain PAG, amygdala, BNST, a shock stimulus is associated with activity in the bed nucleus striatum, and insula (8, 11), after controlling for whether the ta- of the stria terminalis (BNST), a region highly connected to the amygdala (9), whereas courage associated with self-administered movement of a snake toward the subject’s own head increases Author contributions: D.M., J.B.R., and T.D. designed research; D.M., R.Y., H.E., and O.F. activating the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (10). These studies performed research; D.M. and R.Y. analyzed data; and D.M. and T.D. wrote the paper. point to an anatomical network involved in the monitoring of The authors declare no conflict of interest. threat, the instigation of defensive reactions, and overcoming fear This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. (2, 11–13). Freely available online through the PNAS open access option. An outstanding issue not addressed in previous studies (e.g., ref. 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]. 9) is the extent to which different aspects of threat monitoring This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. linked to this brain network can be fractionated, in particular, 1073/pnas.1009076107/-/DCSupplemental. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1009076107 PNAS Early Edition | 1of5 Downloaded by guest on September 27, 2021 porting our hypothesis, for this contrast indexing increased prox- imity, we observed augmented activity in the bilateral amygdala, midbrain PAG, ventral striatum, BNST, bilateral anterior insula, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex [dACC; all P < 0.05, family- wise error (FWE) small volume corrected (svc) using independent coordinates]. For the reverse contrast, we found increased activity in the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex (omPFC; Table S1). To further quantify the effect of spider proximity, we conducted a parametric regression analysis. As the tarantula was placed closer to the participant’s foot (using compartments 1–5as parametric weights), we again observed increased activity in the bilateral insula, BNST, dACC, ventral striatum, and midbrain (Fig. 2A). With increased tarantula distance, increased activity in omPFC and posterior cingulate cortex was observed (Fig. 2B and Table S2). The degree of increase in midbrain PAG activity with greater proximity was also positively correlated with subject-spe- cific scores on the FSQ (19) and with ratings of the tarantula being scarier than anticipated (Tables S3 and S4). Monitoring Approach Versus Retreat of the Tarantula. We next in- vestigated the effects of an approaching or looming spider by comparing trials wherein the tarantula was approaching versus retreating from the foot, relative to the previous trial, and irre- spective of absolute proximity. For example, for compartment 3, we Fig. 1. Experimental paradigm and key behavioral results. (A) Participants compared approach to retreat by contrasting those trials in which were placed supine on the MRI scanner bed and asked to position their foot the previous trial position was 1 or 2 compartments further from with the shoe removed into the open-topped imminence box. Participants the foot (i.e., compartments 1 or 2) versus trials in which the pre- believed that, via a camera feed, they could observe the experimenter vious position was 1 or 2 compartments closer to the foot (i.e., moving the tarantula closer or further away from their foot in real time. The A subjects’ tasks were to predict how afraid they believed they would feel (i.e., compartments 4 or 5; Fig. 3 ). Independent of absolute proximity, expected fear) when the spider was placed in a compartment previously experienced fear ratings were significantly higher when the taran- indicated to them and then how scared they actually felt (i.e., experienced tula approached versus retreated (Wilcoxon Z, −0.3; P = 0.005), as fear) when viewing the tarantula in that compartment. Mean group ratings was activity in the right amygdala, bilateral BNST, ventral striatum, for expected fear (B) and experienced fear (C) as a function of tarantula and bilateral insula (Fig.
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