Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34166604›Full record

ArticleNeuron2021

A human colliculus-pulvinar-amygdala pathway encodes negative emotion.

Philip A Kragel, Marta Čeko, Jordan Theriault, Danlei Chen, Ajay B Satpute, Lawrence W Wald, Martin A Lindquist, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Tor D Wager

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Neuron, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
43citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

43 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  7. Review
  8. Article
  9. A Direct Auditory Subcortical Route to the Amygdala Associated with Fear in Humans.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
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  13. In vivo parcellation of the human superior colliculus from brain-wide probabilistic connectivity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
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  19. A distributed subcortical circuit linked to instrumental information-seeking about threat.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

Philip A KragelInstitute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. Electronic address: pkragel@emory.edu.
Marta ČekoInstitute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
Jordan TheriaultDepartment of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Danlei ChenDepartment of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Ajay B SatputeDepartment of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, MA 02129, USA.
Lawrence W WaldAthinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, MA 02129, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02129, USA.
Martin A LindquistDepartment of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Lisa Feldman BarrettDepartment of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, MA 02129, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02129, USA.
Tor D WagerInstitute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA. Electronic address: tor.d.wager@dartmouth.edu.

Funding

The Neural Bases of Placebo Effects and their Relation to Regulatory ProcessesR01MH076136 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO · PI WAGER, TOR D. · 2007 to 2023
$8.5M
Dynamic brain representations underlying emotional experienceR01MH116026 · NIMH · DARTMOUTH COLLEGE · PI CHANG, LUKE JOSEPH · 2018 to 2025
$4.9M
Individualized spatial topology in functional neuroimagingR01EB026549 · NIBIB · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · PI Abhirup Datta, Martin Lindquist · 2018 to 2026
$4.5M
Brain and Genetic Predictors of Individual Differences in Pain and Placebo AnalgesiaR01DA046064 · NIDA · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO · PI FRIEDMAN, NAOMI P., WAGER, TOR D. · 2018 to 2022
$3.2M
Fundamental subcortical mechanisms of affective processingU01CA193632 · NCI · NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY · PI BARRETT, LISA FELDMAN, SATPUTE, AJAY · 2016 to 2020
$3.0M
The neural bases of placebo effects and their relation to regulatory processesR37MH076136 · NIMH · DARTMOUTH COLLEGE · PI TOR D. WAGER · 2024 to 2026
$2.4M
Longitudinal Causal Inferencer for fMRIR01EB016061 · NIBIB · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · PI LINDQUIST, MARTIN · 2013 to 2020
$2.3M
NCI NIH HHS U01 CA193632NIBIB NIH HHS R01 EB016061NIBIB NIH HHS R01 EB026549NIDA NIH HHS R01 DA046064NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH076136NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH116026NIMH NIH HHS R37 MH076136
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Animals must rapidly respond to threats to survive. In rodents, threat-related signals are processed through a subcortical pathway from the superior colliculus to the amygdala, a putative "low road" to affective behavior. This pathway has not been well characterized in humans. We developed a novel pathway identification framework that uses pattern recognition to identify connected neural populations and optimize measurement of inter-region connectivity. We first verified that the model identifies known thalamocortical pathways with high sensitivity and specificity in 7 T (n = 56) and 3 T (n = 48) fMRI experiments. Then we identified a human functional superior colliculus-pulvinar-amygdala pathway. Activity in this pathway encodes the intensity of normative emotional responses to negative images and sounds but not pleasant images or painful stimuli. These results provide a functional description of a human "low road" pathway selective for negative exteroceptive events and demonstrate a promising method for characterizing human functional brain pathways.

Indexed as

AmygdalaEmotionsHumansMagnetic Resonance ImagingNeural PathwaysPulvinarSuperior ColliculiamygdalafMRIfunctional connectivitymultivariate pathway identificationnegative emotionpulvinarsuperior colliculus

Identifiers

PMID34166604
PMCPMC8349850

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.