Loading...
Adults who were categorized as behaviorally inhibited as 2-year-old children have demonstrated greater amygdala reactivity to unfamiliar faces than adults who were behaviorally uninhibited as children. These researchers have now examined amygdala reactivity in adults classified according to their reactivity to unfamiliar stimuli at age 4 months, a phenotype less affected by environment and parental rearing and thus closer to genetically controlled neural mechanisms.
High and low reactivity in infants was defined based on crying, hyperactivity, and back arching in response to novel auditory and visual stimuli. Men, but not women, who had been high-reactive infants showed greater amygdala reactivity to unfamiliar faces, compared with men and w…