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Giraud M, Zapparoli L, Basso G, Petilli M, Paulesu E, Nava E. Mapping the emotional homunculus with fMRI. iScience 2024; 27:109985. [PMID: 38868180 PMCID: PMC11167434 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109985] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2023] [Revised: 12/02/2023] [Accepted: 05/13/2024] [Indexed: 06/14/2024] Open
Abstract
Emotions are commonly associated with bodily sensations, e.g., boiling with anger when overwhelmed with rage. Studies have shown that emotions are related to specific body parts, suggesting that somatotopically organized cortical regions that commonly respond to somatosensory and motor experiences might be involved in the generation of emotions. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate whether the subjective feelings of emotion are accompanied by the activation of somatotopically defined sensorimotor brain regions, thus aiming to reconstruct an "emotional homunculus." By defining the convergence of the brain activation patterns evoked by self-generated emotions during scanning onto a sensorimotor map created on participants' tactile and motor brain activity, we showed that all the evoked emotions activated parts of this sensorimotor map, yet with considerable overlap among different emotions. Although we could not find a highly specific segmentation of discrete emotions over sensorimotor regions, our results support an embodied experience of emotions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michelle Giraud
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milan, Italy
- Psychology Department and NeuroMi, Milan Centre for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Laura Zapparoli
- Psychology Department and NeuroMi, Milan Centre for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
- fMRI Unit, IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi, Milan, Italy
| | - Gianpaolo Basso
- School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy
| | - Marco Petilli
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milan, Italy
| | - Eraldo Paulesu
- Psychology Department and NeuroMi, Milan Centre for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Elena Nava
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milan, Italy
- Psychology Department and NeuroMi, Milan Centre for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
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Liu J, Liu Y, Jiang H, Zhao J, Ding X. Facial feedback manipulation influences the automatic detection of unexpected emotional body expressions. Neuropsychologia 2024; 195:108802. [PMID: 38266669 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108802] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/04/2023] [Revised: 12/31/2023] [Accepted: 01/16/2024] [Indexed: 01/26/2024]
Abstract
Unexpected or changing facial expressions are known to be able to engage more automatic processing than frequently occurring facial expressions, thereby inducing a neural differential wave response known as expression mismatch negativity (EMMN). Recent studies have shown that EMMN can be modulated by the observer's facial feedback (i.e., feedback from their own facial movements). A similar EMMN activity has been discovered for body expressions, but thus far only a few emotion types have been investigated. It is unknown whether the EMMNs evoked by body expressions can be influenced by facial feedback. To explore this question, we recorded EEG activity of 29 participants in the reverse oddball paradigm. Here two unexamined categories of body expressions were presented, happy and sad, placed in two paired stimulus sequences: in one the happy body was presented with a probability of 80% (standards) while the sad body was presented with a probability of 20% (deviants), and in the other the probabilities were reversed. The facial feedback was manipulated by different pen holding conditions (i.e., participants holding the pen with the teeth, lips, or nondominant hand). The nonparametric cluster permutation test revealed significant happy and sad body-related EMMN (bEMMN) activities. The happy-bEMMN were more negative than sad-bEMMN within the range of 100-150 ms. Additionally, the bEMMN amplitude of both emotions is modulated by the facial feedback conditions. These results expand the range of emotional types applicable to bEMMN and provide evidence for the validity of the facial feedback hypothesis across emotional carriers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jianyi Liu
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University and Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China
| | - Yang Liu
- School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Heng Jiang
- School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Jingjing Zhao
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University and Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China.
| | - Xiaobin Ding
- School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China.
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Arslanova I, Meletaki V, Calvo-Merino B, Forster B. Perception of facial expressions involves emotion specific somatosensory cortex activations which are shaped by alexithymia. Cortex 2023; 167:223-234. [PMID: 37573853 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.06.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Revised: 05/25/2023] [Accepted: 06/23/2023] [Indexed: 08/15/2023]
Abstract
Somatosensory cortex (SCx) has been shown to crucially contribute to early perceptual processes when judging other's emotional facial expressions. Here, we investigated the specificity of SCx activity to angry, happy, sad and neutral emotions and the role of personality factors. We assessed participants' alexithymia (TAS-20) and depression (BDI) levels, their cardioceptive abilities and recorded changes in neural activity in a facial emotion judgment task. During the task, we presented tactile probes to reveal neural activity in SCx which was then isolated from visual carry-over responses. We further obtain SCx emotion effects by subtracting SCx activity elicited by neutral emotion expressions from angry, happy, and sad expressions. We find preliminary evidence for distinct modulations of SCx activity to angry and happy expressions. Moreover, the SCx anger response was predicted by individual differences in trait alexithymia. Thus, emotion expressions of others may be distinctly presented in the observer's neural body representation and may be shaped by their personality trait.
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Affiliation(s)
- Irena Arslanova
- Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK; Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
| | - Vasiliki Meletaki
- Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK
| | - Beatriz Calvo-Merino
- Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK
| | - Bettina Forster
- Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK.
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Wang X, Xu B, Zhang W, Wang J, Deng L, Ping J, Hu C, Li H. Recognizing emotions induced by wearable haptic vibration using noninvasive electroencephalogram. Front Neurosci 2023; 17:1219553. [PMID: 37483356 PMCID: PMC10357513 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1219553] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2023] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 07/25/2023] Open
Abstract
The integration of haptic technology into affective computing has led to a new field known as affective haptics. Nonetheless, the mechanism underlying the interaction between haptics and emotions remains unclear. In this paper, we proposed a novel haptic pattern with adaptive vibration intensity and rhythm according to the volume, and applied it into the emotional experiment paradigm. To verify its superiority, the proposed haptic pattern was compared with an existing haptic pattern by combining them with conventional visual-auditory stimuli to induce emotions (joy, sadness, fear, and neutral), and the subjects' EEG signals were collected simultaneously. The features of power spectral density (PSD), differential entropy (DE), differential asymmetry (DASM), and differential caudality (DCAU) were extracted, and the support vector machine (SVM) was utilized to recognize four target emotions. The results demonstrated that haptic stimuli enhanced the activity of the lateral temporal and prefrontal areas of the emotion-related brain regions. Moreover, the classification accuracy of the existing constant haptic pattern and the proposed adaptive haptic pattern increased by 7.71 and 8.60%, respectively. These findings indicate that flexible and varied haptic patterns can enhance immersion and fully stimulate target emotions, which are of great importance for wearable haptic interfaces and emotion communication through haptics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xin Wang
- The State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Remote Measurement and Control, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Baoguo Xu
- The State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Remote Measurement and Control, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Wenbin Zhang
- The State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Remote Measurement and Control, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Jiajin Wang
- The State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Remote Measurement and Control, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Leying Deng
- The State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Remote Measurement and Control, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Jingyu Ping
- The State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Remote Measurement and Control, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Cong Hu
- Guangxi Key Laboratory of Automatic Detecting Technology and Instruments, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin, China
| | - Huijun Li
- The State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Remote Measurement and Control, School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
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Cardiac sympathetic-vagal activity initiates a functional brain-body response to emotional arousal. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2119599119. [PMID: 35588453 PMCID: PMC9173754 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2119599119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
We investigate the temporal dynamics of brain and cardiac activities in healthy subjects who underwent an emotional elicitation through videos. We demonstrate that, within the first few seconds, emotional stimuli modulate heartbeat activity, which in turn stimulates an emotion intensity (arousal)–specific cortical response. The emotional processing is then sustained by a bidirectional brain–heart interplay, where the perceived arousal level modulates the amplitude of ascending heart-to-brain neural information flow. These findings may constitute fundamental knowledge linking neurophysiology and psychiatric disorders, including the link between depressive symptoms and cardiovascular disorders. A century-long debate on bodily states and emotions persists. While the involvement of bodily activity in emotion physiology is widely recognized, the specificity and causal role of such activity related to brain dynamics has not yet been demonstrated. We hypothesize that the peripheral neural control on cardiovascular activity prompts and sustains brain dynamics during an emotional experience, so these afferent inputs are processed by the brain by triggering a concurrent efferent information transfer to the body. To this end, we investigated the functional brain–heart interplay under emotion elicitation in publicly available data from 62 healthy subjects using a computational model based on synthetic data generation of electroencephalography and electrocardiography signals. Our findings show that sympathovagal activity plays a leading and causal role in initiating the emotional response, in which ascending modulations from vagal activity precede neural dynamics and correlate to the reported level of arousal. The subsequent dynamic interplay observed between the central and autonomic nervous systems sustains the processing of emotional arousal. These findings should be particularly revealing for the psychophysiology and neuroscience of emotions.
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Kanske P, Murray RJ. The neurobiological bases of understanding others. Cortex 2021; 134:351-357. [PMID: 33390214 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.12.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Kanske
- Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
| | - Ryan J Murray
- Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland
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