Distributed neural representations of conditioned threat in the human brain

Zhenfu Wen, Edward F. Pace-Schott, Sara W. Lazar, Jörgen Rosén, Fredrik Åhs, Elizabeth A. Phelps, Joseph E. LeDoux and Mohammed R. Milad ()
Additional contact information
Zhenfu Wen: New York University Grossman School of Medicine
Edward F. Pace-Schott: Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Sara W. Lazar: Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Jörgen Rosén: Karolinska Institutet
Fredrik Åhs: Mid Sweden University
Elizabeth A. Phelps: Harvard University
Joseph E. LeDoux: New York University Grossman School of Medicine
Mohammed R. Milad: New York University Grossman School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Detecting and responding to threat engages several neural nodes including the amygdala, hippocampus, insular cortex, and medial prefrontal cortices. Recent propositions call for the integration of more distributed neural nodes that process sensory and cognitive facets related to threat. Integrative, sensitive, and reproducible distributed neural decoders for the detection and response to threat and safety have yet to be established. We combine functional MRI data across varying threat conditioning and negative affect paradigms from 1465 participants with multivariate pattern analysis to investigate distributed neural representations of threat and safety. The trained decoders sensitively and specifically distinguish between threat and safety cues across multiple datasets. We further show that many neural nodes dynamically shift representations between threat and safety. Our results establish reproducible decoders that integrate neural circuits, merging the well-characterized ‘threat circuit’ with sensory and cognitive nodes, discriminating threat from safety regardless of experimental designs or data acquisition parameters.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46508-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-46508-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46508-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().