Effects of Intensity of Facial Expressions on Amygdalar Activation Independently of Valence

For several stimulus categories (e.g., pictures, odors, and words), the arousal of both negative and positive stimuli has been shown to modulate amygdalar activation. In contrast, previous studies did not observe similar amygdalar effects in response to negative and positive facial expressions with varying intensity of facial expressions. Reasons for this discrepancy may be related to analytical strategies, experimental design and stimuli....