Figure 4.

A schematic diagram illustrating the proposed flow of information during visual processing of linguistic paranoid threat. Feedback projections illustrated with hashed arrows. Visual information enters the system via the ventral visual stream and accesses the PSLN via the vOTC. The MTG and BA 47 are considered here to be key nodes in a “semantic access network” subserving lexicosemantic transformations (and thus an exit point from the PSLN through which widely distributed conceptual representations can be activated). The amygdala is activated when the emotional content of a word is identified. Selective activation of the “semantic access network” during the threat condition could reflect an intrinsic sensitivity of these cortical regions to emotion, or it could be driven by feedback projections from the amygdala. Enhanced activity in the vOTC during the threat condition could result from feedback projections from the amygdala or from the perisylvian region. The increased activity in visual and semantic regions when subjects read threat words is presumed to enhance processing of these specific visuolexicosemantic associations.

Key: PSLN – perisylvian language network; BA 44/45 – Brodmann Areas 44 and 45; pSTG – posterior superior temporal gyrus; A – amygdala; vOTC – ventral occipitotemporal cortex; BA 47 – Brodmann Area 47; MTG – middle temporal gyrus