The direction of the eye gaze of others is a prominent social cue in primates and is important for communication 1 – 11 . Although gaze can signal threat and elicit anxiety 6 , 12 , 13 , it remains unclear whether it shares neural circuitry with stimulus value. Notably, gaze not only has valence, but can also serve as a predictor of the outcome of a social encounter, which can be either negative or positive 2 , 8 , 12 , 13 . Here we show that the neural codes for gaze and valence overlap in primates and that they involve two different mechanisms: one for the outcome and another for its expectation. Monkeys participated in the human intruder test 13 , 14 , in which a human participant had either a direct or averted gaze, interleaved with blocks of aversive and appetitive conditioning. We find that single neurons in the amygdala encode gaze 15 , whereas neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex encode the social context 16 , but not gaze. We identify a shared population in the amygdala for which the neural responses to direct and averted gaze parallel the responses to aversive and appetitive stimulus, respectively. Furthermore, we distinguish between two neural mechanisms—an overall-activity scheme that is used for gaze and the unconditioned stimulus, and a correlated-selectivity scheme that is used for gaze and the conditioned stimulus. These findings provide insights into the origins of the neural mechanisms that underlie the computations of both social interactions and valence, and could help to shed light on mechanisms that underlie social anxiety and the comorbidity between anxiety and impaired social interactions. The primate amygdala contains a shared neural circuitry for eye gaze and for valence; however, this circuitry implements two different neural codes—one for the outcome and another for the expectation of the outcome.

中文翻译：

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跨眼睛注视、效价和期望共享但可分离的神经代码

他人注视的方向是灵长类动物的重要社会线索，对交流很重要 1 – 11 。尽管凝视可以发出威胁信号并引起焦虑 6, 12, 13，但目前尚不清楚它是否与刺激值共享神经回路。值得注意的是，凝视不仅具有效价，而且还可以作为社交遭遇结果的预测指标，可以是消极的也可以是积极的 2, 8, 12, 13 。在这里，我们展示了灵长类动物中凝视和效价的神经代码重叠，并且它们涉及两种不同的机制：一种用于结果，另一种用于预期。猴子参加了人类入侵者测试 13, 14，其中人类参与者有直接或回避的凝视，与厌恶和食欲调节块交错。我们发现杏仁核中的单个神经元编码凝视 15 ，而前扣带回皮层中的神经元编码社会背景 16 ，但不编码凝视。我们在杏仁核中确定了一个共享群体，其中对直接和回避凝视的神经反应分别与对厌恶和食欲刺激的反应平行。此外，我们区分了两种神经机制——用于凝视和无条件刺激的整体活动方案，以及用于凝视和条件刺激的相关选择性方案。这些发现提供了对构成社交互动和效价计算基础的神经机制的起源的见解，并有助于阐明构成社交焦虑的机制以及焦虑与受损社交互动之间的共病。灵长类动物的杏仁核包含用于眼睛注视和价态的共享神经回路；然而，这个电路实现了两种不同的神经代码——一种用于结果，另一种用于预期结果。