Neural structures associated with recognition of facial expressions of basic emotions

Social Cognition and Functional Connectivity in Early and Chronic Schizophrenia

BACKGROUND

Individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) experience impairments in social cognition that contribute to poor functional outcomes. However, mechanisms of social cognitive dysfunction in SZ remain poorly understood, which impedes the design of novel interventions to improve outcomes. In this preregistered project, we examined the representation of social cognition in the brain's functional architecture in early and chronic SZ.

METHODS

The study contains 2 parts: a confirmatory and an exploratory portion. In the confirmatory portion, we identified resting-state connectivity disruptions evident in early and chronic SZ. We performed a connectivity analysis using regions associated with social cognitive dysfunction in early and chronic SZ to test whether aberrant connectivity observed in chronic SZ (n = 47 chronic SZ and n = 52 healthy control participants) was also present in early SZ (n = 71 early SZ and n = 47 healthy control participants). In the exploratory portion, we assessed the out-of-sample generalizability and precision of predictive models of social cognition. We used machine learning to predict social cognition and established generalizability with out-of-sample testing and confound control.

RESULTS

Results revealed decreases between the left inferior frontal gyrus and the intraparietal sulcus in early and chronic SZ, which were significantly associated with social and general cognition and global functioning in chronic SZ and with general cognition and global functioning in early SZ. Predictive modeling revealed the importance of out-of-sample evaluation and confound control.

CONCLUSIONS

This work provides insights into the functional architecture in early and chronic SZ and suggests that inferior frontal gyrus-intraparietal sulcus connectivity could be a prognostic biomarker of social impairments and a target for future interventions (e.g., neuromodulation) focused on improved social functioning.

COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on STRESS, PTSD, and Prefrontal Cortical Thickness in Pre-Pandemic Trauma Survivors

Background/Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic increased psychiatric symptoms in patients with pre-pandemic mental health conditions. However, the effects of pandemic on the brain, stress, and mental illness remain largely conjectural. Our objective was to examine how the pandemic affected prefrontal cortical thicknesses (CTs), stress, and PTSD symptoms in people with pre-pandemic trauma histories. Methods: Fifty-one survivors from a pre-pandemic trauma study who had completed a pre-pandemic PTSD Checklist-5 (PCL) to assess PTSD symptoms and a sMRI scan to measure prefrontal CTs were re-recruited after the pandemic. They subsequently completed the COVID Stress Scale (CSS) to assess stress, the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale-5 (CAPS) to diagnose PTSD, and a second sMRI scan. COVID-19 infection was self-reported. Associations between stress and symptom assessments and post-pandemic CTs, differences in CTs in PTSD vs. non-PTSD groups, and changes in pre- to post-pandemic CTs were examined. Results: Pre-pandemic PCL scores were positively associated with CSS scores which, in turn, were higher in the PTSD group. Thicker IFG-opercularis CTs were associated with COVID-19 infection. Post-pandemic rMFG and IFG-orbitalis CTs were positively associated with CAPS scores. rACC CTs were negatively associated with CSS scores. Pre- to post-pandemic rMFG and frontal pole CTs thickened in the PTSD group but thinned in the non-PTSD group, whereas rACC CTs thinned in the PTSD group but thickened in the non-PTSD group. Conclusions: These findings provide novel evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic had diverse effects involving prefrontal cortex structure, stress, and PTSD symptoms in subjects with pre-pandemic trauma history and suggest that treatments are needed to counter these diverse effects.

Early environmental influences on the orbito-frontal cortex function and its effects on behavior

Early-life adversity during pre- and early post-natal phases can impact brain development and lead to maladaptive changes in executive function related behaviors. This increases the risk for a range of psychopathologies and physical diseases. Importantly, exposure to adversities during these periods is also linked to alterations in the orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) which is a key player in these executive functions. The OFC thus appears to be a central node in this association between early life stress and disease risk. Gaining a clear, and detailed understanding of the association between early life stress, OFC function, and executive function, as well as the underlying mechanisms mediating this association is relevant to inform potential therapeutic interventions. In this paper, we begin by reviewing evidence linking early life adversities to 1) alterations in behaviors regulated by the OFC and 2) changes in OFC anatomy and function. We then present insights into the underlying mechanisms for these changes, stemming from early life adversity models, and highlight important future directions for this line of research.

"Does facial emotion recognition mediate the relationship between preterm birth and social skills? - A meta-analysis"

BACKGROUND

Preterm birth (PB) is prevalent and associated with structural and functional brain alterations which may affect cognitive and behavioural outcomes, including social development. Facial emotion recognition (FER) is one of the main components of social interaction. PB individuals face distinct FER challenges that may impact social skills. Furthermore, both FER and social skills have shown distinctive developmental trajectories in PB individuals compared to term born controls. This study investigates the association between FER and social skills in PB individuals compared to term-born controls.

OBJECTIVES

To systematically review and meta-analyse relevant literature on the association between FER and social skills and to summarize the reported differences in FER and social skills between PB individuals and term-born controls of similar age.

METHOD

a systematic search of peer-reviewed and English written studies was performed in MEDLINE, Web of Science and CINAHL, with an additional forward and backward citation search. Eligible studies included any observational study that had a term-born control sample of similar age with reported FER and social skills measures and/or correlations between them. Quality assessment and data extraction was carried out. Correlation coefficients and Hedges' g for FER and social skills were calculated as effect size indexes. Random effects model and subgroup analysis considering gestational age and age at assessment was performed. Results were summarized using forest plots. I2 statistics and Cochran's Q were used to test for heterogeneity.

RESULTS

8 studies were included (PB = 410, controls =337). Only 3 studies explored the correlation between FER and social skills. The review found a higher correlation between FER and social skills in the PB group (Z = 0.18, CI = -0.03, 0.39) compared to controls (Z = 0.11, CI = -0.03, 0.25). FER was significantly lower in PB individuals (overall g = -1.48; 95%IC = -2.46, -0-5), particularly in very preterm and adolescent subgroups.

DISCUSSION

FER might play a crucial role in the social development of PB individuals compared to those born at term, but existing research in this domain remains limited.

Emotional pictures in the brain and their interaction with the task: A fine-grained fMRI coordinate-based meta-analysis study

The impacting research on emotions of the last decades was carried out with different methods. The most popular was based on the use of a validated sample of slides, the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS), divided mainly into pleasant, neutral and unpleasant categories, and on fMRI as a measure of brain activation induced by these stimuli. With the present coordinate-based meta-analysis (CBMA) based on ALE approach, we aimed to unmask the main brain networks involved in the contrast of pleasant vs. neutral and unpleasant vs. neutral IAPS slide categories. Furthermore, we included studies employing both IAPS and non-IAPS (but analogously validated) pictures, a condition termed as IAPS EXTENDED. After selecting 97 papers published in the 2000-2023 interval, the planned contrasts were analyzed by also considering their interaction with the Load factor of the concomitant task, which comprised the conditions: No Load (passive viewing), Low-Load tasks and High-Load tasks. We analyzed a total of 152 experiments (106 focusing on the negative vs. neutral contrast; 46 reporting positive vs. neutral contrasts). We additionally performed conjunction and contrast analyses. Results confirmed outcomes of past meta-analyses on the involvement of a number of cortical and subcortical paralimbic and limbic regions during unpleasant picture processing, but the increase of the pubblications on this topic in last years, together with a more fine-grained analysis, allowed us to find also the involvement of additional areas, such as the right middle frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 9), posterior cingulate, and left inferior parietal lobule. Concerning passive viewing and low-load tasks, a clear frontal asymmetry emerged with greater right prefrontal activation (BA9) to unpleasant vs. pleasant pictures, whereas, during No Load tasks only, left frontal dominance to pleasant vs. unpleasant stimuli was found (BA13). The unpleasant vs. neutral comparison on High-Load tasks (the pleasant condition had an insufficient sample size) revealed a specific lateralization of several areas of the right hemisphere (STG-BA 38, MFG-BA 46, FG-BA 37), whereas, in the other load conditions, the inferior frontal gyrus was right lateralized, but the main activated regions were bilateral or left lateralized. Results are discussed considering the effects of both valence and task/load variables, and the involvement of hippocampus/amygdala, hemispheric asymmetries of emotions, the occipito-temporal areas, several sub-regions of the prefrontal/orbitofrontal cortex, and an extended motor network.

Impact of chronic intranasal oxytocin administration on face expression processing in autistic children: a randomized controlled trial using fMRI

BACKGROUND

Difficulties with (non-verbal) social communication, including facial expression processing, constitute a hallmark of autism. Intranasal administration of oxytocin has been considered a potential therapeutic option for improving social difficulties in autism, either by enhancing the salience of social cues or by reducing the social stress and anxiety experienced in social encounters.

METHODS

We recorded fMRI brain activity while presenting neutral, fearful and scrambled faces, to compare the neural face processing signature of autistic children (n = 58) with that of matched non-autistic controls (n = 38). Next, in the autistic children group, we implemented this fMRI face processing task in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multiple-dose oxytocin clinical trial, to evaluate the impact of four-week repeated oxytocin administration (24 IU daily dose) on brain activity in face processing regions.

RESULTS

No significant diagnostic-group differences were identified between autistic versus non-autistic children with regard to neural face processing. Furthermore, no significant treatment effects were found in the oxytocin clinical trial. However, exploratory analyses (uncorrected for multiple comparisons) demonstrated decreases in brain activity in the left superior temporal sulcus (STS) and inferior frontal region in the oxytocin compared to the placebo group, and change-from-baseline analyses in the oxytocin group revealed significantly reduced neural activity in the core face-processing network (STS, inferior occipital, and posterior fusiform), as well as in amygdala and inferior frontal region.

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest an attenuating effect of multiple-dose oxytocin administration on neural face processing, potentially supporting the anxiolytic account of oxytocin.

Neural Modulation Alteration to Positive and Negative Emotions in Depressed Patients: Insights from fMRI Using Positive/Negative Emotion Atlas

BACKGROUND

Although it has been noticed that depressed patients show differences in processing emotions, the precise neural modulation mechanisms of positive and negative emotions remain elusive. FMRI is a cutting-edge medical imaging technology renowned for its high spatial resolution and dynamic temporal information, making it particularly suitable for the neural dynamics of depression research.

METHODS

To address this gap, our study firstly leveraged fMRI to delineate activated regions associated with positive and negative emotions in healthy individuals, resulting in the creation of the positive emotion atlas (PEA) and the negative emotion atlas (NEA). Subsequently, we examined neuroimaging changes in depression patients using these atlases and evaluated their diagnostic performance based on machine learning.

RESULTS

Our findings demonstrate that the classification accuracy of depressed patients based on PEA and NEA exceeded 0.70, a notable improvement compared to the whole-brain atlases. Furthermore, ALFF analysis unveiled significant differences between depressed patients and healthy controls in eight functional clusters during the NEA, focusing on the left cuneus, cingulate gyrus, and superior parietal lobule. In contrast, the PEA revealed more pronounced differences across fifteen clusters, involving the right fusiform gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, and inferior parietal lobule.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings emphasize the complex interplay between emotion modulation and depression, showcasing significant alterations in both PEA and NEA among depression patients. This research enhances our understanding of emotion modulation in depression, with implications for diagnosis and treatment evaluation.

Adverse childhood experiences, brain function, and psychiatric diagnoses in a large adult clinical cohort

Introduction

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are linked to higher rates of psychiatric disorders in adults. Previous neuroimaging studies with small samples have shown associations between ACEs and alterations in brain volume, connectivity, and blood flow. However, no study has explored these associations in a large clinical population to identify brain regions that may mediate the relationship between ACEs and psychiatric diagnoses. This study aims to evaluate how patient-reported ACEs are associated with brain function in adults, across diagnoses.

Methods

We analyzed 7,275 adults using HMPAO SPECT scans at rest and during a continuous performance task (CPT). We assessed the impact of ACEs on brain function across psychiatric diagnoses and performed mediation analyses where brain functional regions of interest acted as mediators between patient-reported ACEs and specific psychiatric diagnoses. We further evaluated the risk of being diagnosed with specific classes of mental illnesses as a function of increasing ACEs and identified which specific ACE questions were statistically related to each diagnosis in this cohort.

Results

Increased ACEs were associated with higher activity in cognitive control and default mode networks and decreased activity in the dorsal striatum and cerebellum. Higher ACEs increased the risk of anxiety-related disorders, substance abuse, and depression. Several brain regions were identified as potential mediators between ACEs and adult psychiatric diagnoses.

Discussion

This study, utilizing a large clinical cohort, provides new insights into the neurobiological mechanisms linking ACEs to adult psychiatric conditions. The findings suggest that specific brain regions mediate the effects of ACEs on the risk of developing mental health disorders, highlighting potential targets for therapeutic interventions.

Amygdala fMRI-A Critical Appraisal of the Extant Literature

Even before the advent of fMRI, the amygdala occupied a central space in the affective neurosciences. Yet this amygdala-centred view on emotion processing gained even wider acceptance after the inception of fMRI in the early 1990s, a landmark that triggered a goldrush of fMRI studies targeting the amygdala in vivo. Initially, this amygdala fMRI research was mostly confined to task-activation studies measuring the magnitude of the amygdala's response to emotional stimuli. Later, interest began to shift more towards the study of the amygdala's resting-state functional connectivity and task-based psychophysiological interactions. Later still, the test-retest reliability of amygdala fMRI came under closer scrutiny, while at the same time, amygdala-based real-time fMRI neurofeedback gained widespread popularity. Each of these major subdomains of amygdala fMRI research has left its marks on the field of affective neuroscience at large. The purpose of this review is to provide a critical assessment of this literature. By integrating the insights garnered by these research branches, we aim to answer the question: What part (if any) can amygdala fMRI still play within the current landscape of affective neuroscience? Our findings show that serious questions can be raised with regard to both the reliability and validity of amygdala fMRI. These conclusions force us to cast doubt on the continued viability of amygdala fMRI as a core pilar of the affective neurosciences.

Web-Based Group Conversational Intervention on Cognitive Function and Comprehensive Functional Status Among Japanese Older Adults: Protocol for a 6-Month Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND

Social communication is a key factor in maintaining cognitive function and contributes to well-being in later life.

OBJECTIVE

This study will examine the effects of "Photo-Integrated Conversation Moderated by Application version 2" (PICMOA-2), which is a web-based conversational intervention, on cognitive performance, frailty, and social and psychological indicators among community-dwelling older adults.

METHODS

This study is a randomized controlled trial with an open-label, 2-parallel group trial and 1:1 allocation design. Community dwellers aged 65 years and older were enrolled in the trial and divided into the intervention and control groups. The intervention group receives the PICMOA-2 program, a web-based group conversation, once every 2 weeks for 6 months. The primary outcome is verbal fluency, including phonemic and semantic fluency. The secondary outcomes are other neuropsychiatric batteries, including the Mini-Mental State Examination, Logical Memory (immediate and delay), verbal paired associates, and comprehensive functional status evaluated by questionnaires, including frailty, social status, and well-being. The effect of the intervention will be examined using a mixed linear model. As a secondary aim, we will test whether the intervention effects vary with the covariates at baseline to examine the effective target attributes.

RESULTS

Recruitment was completed in July 2023. A total of 66 participants were randomly allocated to intervention or control groups. As of January 1, 2024, the intervention is ongoing. Participants are expected to complete the intervention at the end of February 2024, and the postintervention evaluation will be conducted in March 2024.

CONCLUSIONS

This protocol outlines the randomized controlled trial study design evaluating the effect of a 6-month intervention with PICMOA-2. This study will provide evidence on the effectiveness of social interventions on cognitive function and identify effective target images for remote social intervention.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

UMIN Clinical Trials UMIN000050877; https://tinyurl.com/5eahsy66.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

DERR1-10.2196/56608.

The pill you don't have to take that is still effective: neural correlates of imaginary placebo intake for regulating disgust

A commonly established protocol for the administration of open-label placebos (OLPs)-placebos honestly prescribed-emphasizes the necessity of ingesting the pill for the placebo effect to manifest. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging study used a novel approach to OLP administration: the imaginary intake of an OLP pill for regulating disgust. A total of 99 females were randomly allocated to one of three groups that either swallowed a placebo pill (OLP Pill), imagined the intake of a placebo pill (Imaginary Pill) or passively viewed (PV) repulsive and neutral images. The imaginary pill reduced reported disgust more effectively than the OLP pill and was also perceived as a more plausible method to reduce emotional distress. Relative to the OLP pill, the imaginary pill lowered neural activity in a region of interest involved in disgust processing: the pallidum. No significant differences in brain activation were found when comparing the OLP pill with PV. These findings highlight that imagining the intake of an OLP emerged as a superior method for regulating feelings of disgust compared to the actual ingestion of a placebo pill. The study's innovative approach sheds new light on the potential of placebo interventions in emotion regulation.

The fear of COVID-19 contagion: an exploratory EEG-fMRI study

Pandemics have the potential to change how people behave and feel. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception; thus, it may serve as a "challenging context" for understanding how pandemics affect people's minds. In this study, we used high-density electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural correlates of fear of contagion during the most critical moments of COVID-19 in Italy (i.e., October 2020-May 2021). To do that, we stimulated participants (N = 17; nine females) with artificial-intelligence-generated faces of people presented as healthy, recovered from COVID-19, or infected by SARS-CoV-2. The fMRI results documented a modulation of large bilateral fronto-temporo-parietal functional brain networks. Critically, we found selective recruitment of cortical (e.g., frontal lobes) and subcortical fear-related structures (e.g., amygdala and putamen) of the so-called social brain network when participants observed COVID-19-related faces. Consistently, EEG results showed distinct patterns of brain activity selectively associated with infected and recovered faces (e.g., delta and gamma rhythm). Together, these results highlight how pandemic contexts may reverberate in the human brain, thus influencing most basic social and cognitive functioning. This may explain the emergence of a cluster of psychopathologies during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study underscores the need for prompt interventions to address pandemics' short- and long-term consequences on mental health.

No influence of emotional expression on size underestimation of upright faces

Faces are a primary means of conveying social information between humans. One important factor modulating the perception of human faces is emotional expression. Face inversion also affects perception, including judgments of emotional expression, possibly through the disruption of configural processing. One intriguing inversion effect is an illusion whereby faces appear to be physically smaller when upright than when inverted. This illusion appears to be highly selective for faces. In this study, we investigated whether the emotional expression of a face (neutral, happy, afraid, and angry) modulates the magnitude of this size illusion. Results showed that for all four expressions, there was a clear bias for inverted stimuli to be judged as larger than upright ones. This demonstrates that there is no influence of emotional expression on the size underestimation of upright faces, a surprising result given that recognition of different emotional expressions is known to be affected unevenly by inversion. Results are discussed considering recent neuroimaging research which used population receptive field (pRF) mapping to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying face perception features and which may provide an explanation for how an upright face appears smaller than an inverted one. Elucidation of this effect would lead to a greater understanding of how humans communicate.

Neural Correlates of Facial Emotion Recognition Impairment in Blepharospasm: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Selective impairment in recognizing facial expressions of disgust was reported in patients with focal dystonia several years ago, but the basic neural mechanisms remain largely unexplored. Therefore, we investigated whether dysfunction of the brain network involved in disgust recognition processing was related to this selective impairment in blepharospasm. Facial emotion recognition evaluations and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging were performed in 33 blepharospasm patients and 33 healthy controls (HCs). The disgust processing network was constructed, and modularity analyses were performed to identify sub-networks. Regional functional indexes and intra- and inter-functional connections were calculated and compared between the groups. Compared to HCs, blepharospasm patients demonstrated a worse performance in disgust recognition. In addition, functional connections within the sub-network involved in perception processing rather than recognition processing of disgust were significantly decreased in blepharospasm patients compared to HCs. Specifically, decreased functional connections were noted between the left fusiform gyrus (FG) and right middle occipital gyrus (MOG), the left FG and right FG, and the right FG and left MOG. We identified decreased functional activity in these regions, as indicated by a lower amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in the left MOG, fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in the right FG, and regional homogeneity in the right FG and left MOG in blepharospasm patients versus HCs. Our results suggest that dysfunctions of the disgust processing network exist in blepharospasm. A deficit in disgust emotion recognition may be attributed to disturbances in the early perception of visual disgust stimuli in blepharospasm patients.

Structural brain changes in emotion recognition across the adult lifespan

Emotion recognition (ER) declines with increasing age, yet little is known whether this observation is based on structural brain changes conveyed by differential atrophy. To investigate whether age-related ER decline correlates with reduced grey matter (GM) volume in emotion-related brain regions, we conducted a voxel-based morphometry analysis using data of the Human Connectome Project-Aging (N = 238, aged 36-87) in which facial ER was tested. We expected to find brain regions that show an additive or super-additive age-related change in GM volume indicating atrophic processes that reduce ER in older adults. The data did not support our hypotheses after correction for multiple comparisons. Exploratory analyses with a threshold of P < 0.001 (uncorrected), however, suggested that relationships between GM volume and age-related general ER may be widely distributed across the cortex. Yet, small effect sizes imply that only a small fraction of the decline of ER in older adults can be attributed to local GM volume changes in single voxels or their multivariate patterns.

Facial emotion recognition and schizotypal traits: A systematic review of behavioural studies

AIM

Previous research has indicated that individuals expressing high schizotypal traits and patients with Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD), show deficits in facial emotion recognition, compared to low schizotypal or control groups. On the other hand, non-significant findings also exist and the association of facial emotion recognition deficits with the different schizotypal dimensions is not well defined, thus limiting any conclusive outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to further clarify this relationship.

METHODS

PsychInfo, Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed were systematically searched, and 23 papers with a cross-sectional design were selected. Nineteen studies examined individuals with high schizotypal traits and four studies evaluated SPD individuals with behavioural facial emotion recognition paradigms and self-report measures or clinical interviews for schizotypal traits. All selected studies were published between 1994 and August 2020.

RESULTS

According to the evidence of studies, high schizotypal individuals and SPD patients have poorer performance in facial emotion recognition tasks. Negative schizotypy was related to lower accuracy for positive and negative emotions and faster emotion labeling while positive schizotypy was associated with worse accuracy for positive, negative and neutral emotions and more biases. Disorganized schizotypy was associated with poorer accuracy for negative emotions and suspiciousness with higher accuracy for disgust faces but lower total accuracy.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings are consistent with the vulnerability for schizophrenia spectrum disorders and support the idea that emotion recognition deficits are trait markers for these conditions. Thus, the effectiveness of early-intervention programmes could increase by also targeting this class of deficits.

Prioritization of emotional faces is not driven by emotional content

Emotional faces have prioritized access to visual awareness. However, studies concerned with what expressions are prioritized most are inconsistent and the source of prioritization remains elusive. Here we tested the predictive value of spatial frequency-based image-features and emotional content, the sub-part of the image content that signals the emotional expression of the actor in the image as opposed to the image content irrelevant for the emotional expression, for prioritization for awareness. Participants reported which of two faces (displaying a combination of angry, happy, and neutral expressions), that were temporarily suppressed from awareness, was perceived first. Even though the results show that happy expressions were prioritized for awareness, this prioritization was driven by the contrast energy of the images. In fact, emotional content could not predict prioritization at all. Our findings show that the source of prioritization for awareness is not the information carrying the emotional content. We argue that the methods used here, or similar approaches, should become standard practice to break the chain of inconsistent findings regarding emotional superiority effects that have been part of the field for decades.

Emotion recognition and eye tracking of static and dynamic facial affect: Acomparison of individuals with and without traumatic brain injury

Diminished social functioning is often seen after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Mechanisms contributing to these deficits are poorly understood but thought to relate to impaired ability to recognize facial expressions. Static stimuli are often used to investigate ability post-TBI, and there is less evidence using more real-life dynamic stimuli. In addition, most studies rely on behavioral responses alone. The present study investigated the performance of a TBI group and matched non-TBI group on static and dynamic tasks using eye-tracking technology alongside behavioral measures. This is the first study to use eye tracking methodology alongside behavioral measures in emotion recognition tasks in people with brain injury. Eighteen individuals with heterogeneous TBI and 18 matched non-TBI participants were recruited. Stimuli representing six core emotions (Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happy, Sad, and Surprise faces) were selected from the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set (ADFES). Participants were instructed to identify the emotion displayed correctly whilst eye movement metrics were recorded.

RESULTS

Results of analyses showed that TBI patients had First Fixation to nose for all emotion stimuli, shorter Fixation Duration and lower Fixation Count to eyes, were generally slower to classify stimuli, and less accurate than non-TBI group for the static task. Those with TBI were also less accurate at identifying Angry, Disgust, and Fear stimulus faces compared to the non-TBI group during the dynamic unfolding of an emotion.

CONCLUSION

In the present study, those with TBI had atypical eye scan patterns during emotion identification in the static emotion recognition task compared to the non-TBI group and were associated with lower identification accuracy on behavioral measures in both static and dynamic tasks. Findings suggest potential disruption to oculomotor systems vital for first stage perceptual processing. Arguably, these impairments may contribute to diminished social functioning.

Hot and Cold Cognitive Disturbances in Parkinson Patients Treated with DBS-STN: A Combined PET and Neuropsychological Study

Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) often suffer from non-motor symptoms, which may be caused by serotonergic dysfunction. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) may also influence non-motor symptoms. The aim of this study is to investigate how the cerebral 5-HT system associates to disturbances in cognition and mood in PD patients with DBS-STN turned on and off. We used psychological tests and questionnaires to evaluate cognitive function and the effects on mood from turning DBS-STN off. We applied a novel PET neuroimaging methodology to evaluate the integrity of the cerebral serotonin system. We measured 5-HT1BR binding in 13 DBS-STN-treated PD patients, at baseline and after turning DBS off. Thirteen age-matched volunteers served as controls. The measures for cognition and mood were correlated to the 5-HT1BR availability in temporal limbic cortex. 5-HT1BR binding was proportional to working memory performance and inverse proportional to affective bias for face recognition. When DBS is turned off, patients feel less vigorous; the higher the limbic and temporal 5-HT1BR binding, the more they are affected by DBS being turned off. Our study suggests that cerebral 5-HTR binding is associated with non-motor symptoms, and that preservation of serotonergic functions may be predictive of DBS-STN effects.

Associations between social behaviors and experiences with neural correlates of implicit emotion regulation in middle childhood

Emotion regulation is essential for successful social interactions and function, which are important aspects of middle childhood. The current study is one of the first to examine associations between neural correlates of implicit emotion regulation and indices of social behavior and experience during late middle childhood. We examined neural activation during the implicit emotion regulation condition of the Emotional N-back task using data from 8987 9- to 11-year-olds from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ study. The brain regions assessed included areas linked to social cognition, social behavior, and emotion recognition, including the amygdala, insula, middle temporal gyrus, and inferior parietal lobe. Greater number of close friends was associated with significantly higher activation of the fusiform gyrus, insula, temporoparietal junction, inferior parietal lobe, and superior temporal gyrus during implicit emotion regulation. Greater reciprocal social impairments were linked to decreased fusiform gyrus activation during implicit emotion regulation. More experiences of discrimination were associated with a significantly lower activation in the middle temporal gyrus during implicit emotion regulation. This study provides evidence that both positive and negative indices of children's social experiences and behaviors are associated with neural correlates of implicit emotion regulation during late middle childhood. These findings suggest that both positive and negative indices of social behavior and experience, including those within and not within the youth's control, are associated with generally unique neural correlates during implicit emotion regulation.

Common and distinct neurofunctional representations of core and social disgust in the brain: Coordinate-based and network meta-analyses

Disgust represents a multifaceted defensive-avoidance response. On the behavioral level, the response includes withdrawal and a disgust-specific facial expression. While both serve the avoidance of pathogens, the latter additionally transmits social-communicative information. Given that common and distinct brain representation of the primary defensive-avoidance response (core disgust) and encoding of the social-communicative signal (social disgust) remain debated, we employed neuroimaging meta-analyses to (1) determine brain systems generally engaged in disgust processing, and (2) segregate common and distinct brain systems for core and social disgust. Disgust processing, in general, engaged a bilateral network encompassing the insula, amygdala, occipital and prefrontal regions. Core disgust evoked stronger reactivity in left-lateralized threat detection and defensive response network including amygdala, occipital and frontal regions, while social disgust engaged a right-lateralized superior temporal-frontal network involved in social cognition. Anterior insula, inferior frontal and fusiform regions were commonly engaged during core and social disgust, suggesting a shared neurofunctional basis. We demonstrate a common and distinct neural basis of primary disgust responses and encoding of associated social-communicative signals.

Stronger Mentalizing Network Connectivity in Expectant Fathers Predicts Postpartum Father-Infant Bonding and Parenting Behavior

Fathers play a critical role in parenting and in shaping child outcomes. However, the neurobiological underpinnings of successful adjustment to fatherhood have not been well-specified. Empathy and mentalizing abilities may characterize more effective fathering. These abilities may be supported by the functional connectivity (FC) of brain regions associated with social cognition and executive control. We used a seed-region-based approach to assess resting-state FC (rsFC) of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in 40 expectant fathers. We tested associations between mPFC whole-brain rsFC and fathers' self-report measures of empathy during pregnancy, as well as their ratings of father-infant bonding and fathering behaviors at six months postpartum. Stronger prenatal rsFC between the mPFC and precuneus, frontal pole, planum polare, and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was negatively associated with self-reported empathic concern and perspective-taking, whereas mPFC rsFC with the lateral occipital cortex (LOC) was positively associated with self-reported perspective-taking. Additionally, stronger prenatal connectivity between the mPFC rsFC and the superior parietal lobule and LOC regions predicted father reports of postpartum bonding with infants, and stronger prenatal mPFC rsFC with the LOC predicted more effective postpartum parenting. This study is the first to measure rsFC in expectant fathers as a predictor of subsequent adjustment to fathering.

Pallidal functional connectivity changes are associated with disgust recognition in pure motor amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

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In cognitively normal ALS, we detected early difficulties in recognizing disgust.

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Pallidum functional connectivity (FC) alterations occur in pure-motor ALS patients.

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Reduced left pallidum-temporal FC is linked to altered disgust recognition.

In the present study, we aimed to investigate the resting-state functional connectivity (RS-FC) of the globus pallidus (GP) in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) compared to healthy controls, and the relationship between RS-FC changes and disgust recognition. Twenty-six pure-motor ALS patients and 52 healthy controls underwent RS functional MRI and a neuropsychological assessment including the Comprehensive Affect Testing System. A seed-based RS-FC analysis was performed between the left and right GP and the rest of the brain and compared between groups. Correlations between RS-FC significant changes and subjects’ performance in recognizing disgust were tested. Compared to controls, patients were significantly less able to recognize disgust. In ALS compared to controls, the seed-based analysis showed: reduced RS-FC between bilateral GP and bilateral middle and superior frontal and middle cingulate gyri, and increased RS-FC between bilateral GP and bilateral postcentral, supramarginal and superior temporal gyri and Rolandic operculum. Decreased RS-FC was further observed between left GP and left middle and inferior temporal gyri and bilateral caudate; and increased RS-FC was also shown between right GP and left lingual and fusiform gyri. In patients and controls, lower performance in recognizing disgust correlated with reduced RS-FC between left GP and left middle and inferior temporal gyri. In pure-motor ALS patients, we demonstrated altered RS-FC between GP and the rest of the brain. The reduced left pallidum-temporo-striatal RS-FC may have a role in the lower ability of patients in recognizing disgust.

Impaired Perception of Unintentional Transgression of Social Norms after Prefrontal Cortex Damage: Relationship to Decision Making, Emotion Recognition, and Executive Functions

OBJECTIVE

Patients with prefrontal cortex damage often transgress social rules and show lower accuracy in identifying and explaining inappropriate social behavior. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between the ability to perceive other unintentional transgressions of social norms and both decision making and emotion recognition as these abilities are critical for appropriate social behavior.

METHOD

We examined a group of patients with focal prefrontal cortex damage (N = 28) and a group of matched control participants (N = 28) for their abilities to detect unintentional transgression of social norms using the "Faux-Pas" task of theory of mind, to make advantageous decisions on the Iowa gambling task, and to recognize basic emotions on the Ekman facial affect test.

RESULTS

The group of patients with frontal lobe damage was impaired in all of these tasks compared with control participants. Moreover, all the "Faux-Pas", Iowa gambling, and emotion recognition tasks were significantly associated and predicted by executive measures of inhibition, flexibility, or planning. However, only measures from the Iowa gambling task were associated and predicted performance on the "Faux-Pas" task. These tasks were not associated with performance in recognition of basic emotions. These findings suggest that theory of mind, executive functions, and decision-making abilities act in an interdependent way for appropriate social behavior. However, theory of mind and emotion recognition seem to have distinct but additive effects upon social behavior. Results from VLSM analysis also corroborate these data by showing a partially overlapped prefrontal circuitry underlying these cognitive domains.

Impaired recognition of disgust in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is related to basal ganglia involvement

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Altered ability to correctly recognize disgust in pure motor ALS patients.

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Potential role of the left pallidum in the altered processing of disgust.

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Disgust as one of the first emotion that ALS patients fail to recognize.

In the present study we investigated emotion recognition in pure motor amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients and its relationship with the integrity of basal ganglia, hippocampus and amygdala. Twenty ALS patients without either cognitive or behavioural impairment, and 52 matched healthy controls performed a neuropsychological assessment including the Comprehensive Affect Testing System (CATS) investigating emotion recognition. All participants underwent also a 3T brain MRI. Volumes of basal ganglia, hippocampus and amygdala bilaterally were measured using FIRST in FSL. Sociodemographic, cognitive and MRI data were compared between groups. In ALS patients, correlations between CATS significant findings, brain volumes, cognition, mood and behaviour were explored. ALS patients showed altered performances at the CATS total score and, among the investigated emotions, patients were significantly less able to recognize disgust compared with controls. No brain volumetric differences were observed between groups. In ALS patients, a lower performance in disgust recognition was related with a reduced volume of the left pallidum and a lower performance on the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen. Cognitively/behaviourally unimpaired ALS patients showed impaired disgust recognition, which was associated with pallidum volume. The association with cognitive alterations may suggest impaired disgust recognition as an early marker of cognitive decline.

The neural underpinnings of facial emotion recognition in ischemic stroke patients

Deficits in facial emotion recognition occur frequently after stroke, with adverse social and behavioural consequences. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural underpinnings of the recognition of emotional expressions, in particular of the distinct basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise). A group of 110 ischaemic stroke patients with lesions in (sub)cortical areas of the cerebrum was included. Emotion recognition was assessed with the Ekman 60 Faces Test of the FEEST. Patient data were compared to data of 162 matched healthy controls (HC's). For the patients, whole brain voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) on 3-Tesla MRI images was performed. Results showed that patients performed significantly worse than HC's on both overall recognition of emotions, and specifically of disgust, fear, sadness and surprise. VLSM showed significant lesion-symptom associations for FEEST total in the right fronto-temporal region. Additionally, VLSM for the distinct emotions showed, apart from overlapping brain regions (insula, putamen and Rolandic operculum), also regions related to specific emotions. These were: middle and superior temporal gyrus (anger); caudate nucleus (disgust); superior corona radiate white matter tract, superior longitudinal fasciculus and middle frontal gyrus (happiness) and inferior frontal gyrus (sadness). Our findings help in understanding how lesions in specific brain regions can selectively affect the recognition of the basic emotions.

Peripheral inflammation is associated with brain SPECT perfusion changes in schizophrenia

PURPOSE

Peripheral inflammation is frequent in schizophrenia and could play a role in the pathophysiology, prognosis, and persistence of psychotic symptomatology under treatment. We seek to determine the relationship between peripheral inflammation and brain SPECT perfusion in stabilized antipsychotic-treated outpatients with schizophrenia, and to determine whether such perfusion changes are correlated with persistent symptoms.

METHODS

Highly sensitive C-reactive protein blood level (hs-CRP) and brain SPECT perfusion were assessed in 137 stabilized outpatients with schizophrenia. Whole-brain voxel-based associations were searched with SPM between SPECT perfusion and hs-CRP (correlation analysis to quantitative levels and between-group analysis according to a threshold of 3 mg/L). The identified clusters were secondarily correlated with clinical symptoms.

RESULTS

After adjustment for age, sex, educational level, illness duration, antidepressant use, chlorpromazine equivalent dose, tobacco smoking and obesity, a negative correlation was found between hs-CRP level and the perfusion of 4 brain areas: the right inferior frontal gyrus, the right middle/superior temporal gyrus, the left superior parietal lobe, and the right postcentral/transverse temporal gyrus (p-voxel < 0.001, k > 80, uncorrected). Increased perfusion of the left amygdala was found in patients with hs-CRP ≥ 3 mg/L compared to those with hs-CRP levels < 3 mg/L. A negative correlation was found between perfusion of the right inferior frontal gyrus and the persistence of positive, negative, and excitement symptoms under antipsychotic treatment.

CONCLUSION

In stabilized patients with schizophrenia, peripheral inflammation is associated with brain perfusion changes that are correlated with the persistence of psychotic symptomatology.

Incorporating Interpersonal Synchronization Features for Automatic Emotion Recognition from Visual and Audio Data during Communication

During social interaction, humans recognize others’ emotions via individual features and interpersonal features. However, most previous automatic emotion recognition techniques only used individual features—they have not tested the importance of interpersonal features. In the present study, we asked whether interpersonal features, especially time-lagged synchronization features, are beneficial to the performance of automatic emotion recognition techniques. We explored this question in the main experiment (speaker-dependent emotion recognition) and supplementary experiment (speaker-independent emotion recognition) by building an individual framework and interpersonal framework in visual, audio, and cross-modality, respectively. Our main experiment results showed that the interpersonal framework outperformed the individual framework in every modality. Our supplementary experiment showed—even for unknown communication pairs—that the interpersonal framework led to a better performance. Therefore, we concluded that interpersonal features are useful to boost the performance of automatic emotion recognition tasks. We hope to raise attention to interpersonal features in this study.

Aberrant anterior cingulate processing of anticipated threat as a mechanism for psychosis

Stress and abnormal stress response are associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD), but the brain mechanisms linking stress to symptomatology remain unclear. In this study, we used a stress-based functional neuroimaging task, reverse-translated from preclinical studies, to test the hypothesis that abnormal corticolimbic processing of stressful threat anticipation is associated with psychosis and affective symptoms in SSD. Participants underwent an MRI-compatible ankle-shock task (AST) in which the threat of mild electrical shock was anticipated. We compared functional brain activations during anticipatory threat periods from N = 18 participants with SSD (10 M/8F) to those from N = 12 community controls (9 M/3F). After family-wise error correction, only one region, the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC), showed significantly reduced activation compared with controls. vACC activation significantly correlated with clinical symptoms measured by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale total score (r = 0.54) and the psychosis subscale (r = 0.71), and inversely correlated with trait depression measured by the Maryland Trait and State Depression scale (r=-0.48). Deficient activation in vACC under stress of anticipated threat may lead to aberrant interpretation of such threat, contributing to psychosis and mood symptoms in SSD. This experimental paradigm has translational potential and may identify circuitry-level mechanisms of stress-related mental illness, leading to more targeted treatment.

Brain responsivity to emotional faces differs in men and women with and without a history of alcohol use disorder

Inclusion of women in research on Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) has shown that gender differences contribute to unique profiles of cognitive, emotional, and neuropsychological dysfunction. We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of abstinent individuals with a history of AUD (21 women [AUDw], 21 men [AUDm]) and demographically similar non-AUD control (NC) participants without AUD (21 women [NCw], 21 men [NCm]) to explore how gender and AUD interact to influence brain responses during emotional processing and memory. Participants completed a delayed match-to-sample emotional face memory fMRI task, and brain activation contrasts between a fixation stimulus and pictures of emotional face elicited a similar overall pattern of activation for all four groups. Significant Group by Gender interactions revealed two activation clusters. A cluster in an anterior portion of the middle and superior temporal gyrus, elicited lower activation to the fixation stimulus than to faces for the AUDw as compared to the NCw; that abnormality was more pronounced than the one observed for men. Another cluster in the medial portion of the superior frontal cortex elicited higher activation to the faces by AUDm than NCm, a difference that was more evident than the one observed for women. Together, these findings have added new evidence of AUD-related gender differences in neural responses to facial expressions of emotion.

Facial expression recognition: A meta-analytic review of theoretical models and neuroimaging evidence

Discrimination of facial expressions is an elementary function of the human brain. While the way emotions are represented in the brain has long been debated, common and specific neural representations in recognition of facial expressions are also complicated. To examine brain organizations and asymmetry on discrete and dimensional facial emotions, we conducted an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis and meta-analytic connectivity modelling on 141 studies with a total of 3138 participants. We found consistent engagement of the amygdala and a common set of brain networks across discrete and dimensional emotions. The left-hemisphere dominance of the amygdala and AI across categories of facial expression, but category-specific lateralization of the vmPFC, suggesting a flexibly asymmetrical neural representations of facial expression recognition. These results converge to characteristic activation and connectivity patterns across discrete and dimensional emotion categories in recognition of facial expressions. Our findings provide the first quantitatively meta-analytic brain network-based evidence supportive of the psychological constructionist hypothesis in facial expression recognition.

The image features of emotional faces that predict the initial eye movement to a face

Emotional facial expressions are important visual communication signals that indicate a sender's intent and emotional state to an observer. As such, it is not surprising that reactions to different expressions are thought to be automatic and independent of awareness. What is surprising, is that studies show inconsistent results concerning such automatic reactions, particularly when using different face stimuli. We argue that automatic reactions to facial expressions can be better explained, and better understood, in terms of quantitative descriptions of their low-level image features rather than in terms of the emotional content (e.g. angry) of the expressions. Here, we focused on overall spatial frequency (SF) and localized Histograms of Oriented Gradients (HOG) features. We used machine learning classification to reveal the SF and HOG features that are sufficient for classification of the initial eye movement towards one out of two simultaneously presented faces. Interestingly, the identified features serve as better predictors than the emotional content of the expressions. We therefore propose that our modelling approach can further specify which visual features drive these and other behavioural effects related to emotional expressions, which can help solve the inconsistencies found in this line of research.

A Voxel-based lesion study on facial emotion recognition after circumscribed prefrontal cortex damage

Previous studies have shown inconsistent findings regarding the contribution of the different prefrontal regions in emotion recognition. Moreover, the hemispheric lateralization hypothesis posits that the right hemisphere is dominant for processing all emotions regardless of affective valence, whereas the valence specificity hypothesis posits that the left hemisphere is specialized for processing positive emotions while the right hemisphere is specialized for negative emotions. However, recent findings suggest that the evidence for such lateralization has been less consistent. In this study, we investigated emotion recognition of fear, surprise, happiness, sadness, disgust, and anger in 30 patients with focal prefrontal cortex lesions and 30 control subjects. We also examined the impact of lesion laterality on recognition of the six basic emotions. The results showed that compared to control subjects, the frontal subgroups were impaired in recognition of three negative basic emotions of fear, sadness, and anger - regardless of the lesion laterality. Therefore, our findings did not establish that each hemisphere is specialized for processing specific emotions. Moreover, the voxel-based lesion symptom mapping analysis showed that recognition of fear, sadness, and anger draws on a partially common bilaterally distributed prefrontal network.

Bilateral amygdala damage linked to impaired ability to predict others' fear but preserved moral judgements about causing others fear

The amygdala is a subcortical structure implicated in both the expression of conditioned fear and social fear recognition. Social fear recognition deficits following amygdala lesions are often interpreted as reflecting perceptual deficits, or the amygdala's role in coordinating responses to threats. But these explanations fail to capture why amygdala lesions impair both physiological and behavioural responses to multimodal fear cues and the ability to identify them. We hypothesized that social fear recognition deficits following amygdala damage reflect impaired conceptual understanding of fear. Supporting this prediction, we found specific impairments in the ability to predict others' fear (but not other emotions) from written scenarios following bilateral amygdala lesions. This finding is consistent with the suggestion that social fear recognition, much like social recognition of states like pain, relies on shared internal representations. Preserved judgements about the permissibility of causing others fear confirms suggestions that social emotion recognition and morality are dissociable.

Do anger perception and the experience of anger share common neural mechanisms? Coordinate-based meta-analytic evidence of similar and different mechanisms from functional neuroimaging studies

The neural bases of anger are still a matter of debate. In particular we do not know whether anger perception and anger experience rely on similar or different neural mechanisms. To study this topic, we performed activation-likelihood-estimation meta-analyses of human neuroimaging studies on 61 previous studies on anger perception and experience. Anger perception analysis resulted in significant activation in the amygdala, the right superior temporal gyrus, the right fusiform gyrus and the right IFG, thus revealing the role of perceptual temporal areas for perceiving angry stimuli. Anger experience analysis resulted in the bilateral activations of the insula and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, thus revealing a role for these areas in the subjective experience of anger and, possibly, in a subsequent evaluation of the situation. Conjunction analyses revealed a common area localized in the right inferior frontal gyrus, probably involved in the conceptualization of anger for both perception and experience. Altogether these results provide new insights on the functional architecture underlying the neural processing of anger that involves separate and joint mechanisms. According to our tentative model, angry stimuli are processed by temporal areas, such as the superior temporal gyrus, the fusiform gyrus and the amygdala; on the other hand, the subjective experience of anger mainly relies on the anterior insula; finally, this pattern of activations converges in the right IFG. This region seems to play a key role in the elaboration of a general meaning of this emotion, when anger is perceived or experienced.

Frontotemporal dementia, music perception and social cognition share neurobiological circuits: A meta-analysis

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a neurodegenerative disease that presents with profound changes in social cognition. Music might be a sensitive probe for social cognition abilities, but underlying neurobiological substrates are unclear. We performed a meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies in FTD patients and functional MRI studies for music perception and social cognition tasks in cognitively normal controls to identify robust patterns of atrophy (FTD) or activation (music perception or social cognition). Conjunction analyses were performed to identify overlapping brain regions. In total 303 articles were included: 53 for FTD (n = 1153 patients, 42.5% female; 1337 controls, 53.8% female), 28 for music perception (n = 540, 51.8% female) and 222 for social cognition in controls (n = 5664, 50.2% female). We observed considerable overlap in atrophy patterns associated with FTD, and functional activation associated with music perception and social cognition, mostly encompassing the ventral language network. We further observed overlap across all three modalities in mesolimbic, basal forebrain and striatal regions. The results of our meta-analysis suggest that music perception and social cognition share neurobiological circuits that are affected in FTD. This supports the idea that music might be a sensitive probe for social cognition abilities with implications for diagnosis and monitoring.

Emotional disorders and the cerebellum: Neurobiological substrates, neuropsychiatry, and therapeutic implications

The notion that the cerebellum is devoted exclusively to motor control has been replaced by a more sophisticated understanding of its role in neurological function, one that includes cognition and emotion. Early clinical reports, as well as physiological and behavioral studies in animal models, raised the possibility of a nonmotor role for the cerebellum. Anatomical studies demonstrate cerebellar connectivity with the distributed neural circuits linked with autonomic, sensorimotor, vestibular, associative, and limbic/paralimbic brain areas. Identification of the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome in adults and children underscored the clinical relevance of the role of the cerebellum in cognition and emotion. It opened new avenues of investigation into higher-order deficits that accompany the ataxias and other cerebellar diseases, as well as the contribution of cerebellar dysfunction to neuropsychiatric and neurocognitive disorders. Brain imaging studies have demonstrated the complexity of cerebellar functional topography, revealing a double representation of the sensorimotor cerebellum in the anterior lobe and lobule VIII and a triple cognitive representation in the cerebellar posterior lobe, as well as representation in the cerebellum of the intrinsic connectivity networks identified in the cerebral hemispheres. This paradigm shift in thinking about the cerebellum has been advanced by the theories of dysmetria of thought and the universal cerebellar transform, harmonizing the dual anatomic realities of homogeneously repeating cerebellar cortical microcircuitry set against the heterogeneous and topographically arranged cerebellar connections with extracerebellar structures. This new appreciation of cerebellar incorporation into circuits that subserve cognition and emotion mandates a deeper understanding of the cerebellum by practitioners in behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry because it impacts the understanding and diagnosis of disorders of emotion and intellect and has potential for novel cerebellar-based approaches to therapy.

Neural processing of facial identity and expression in adults with and without autism: A multi-method approach

The ability to recognize faces and facial expressions is a common human talent. It has, however, been suggested to be impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The goal of this study was to compare the processing of facial identity and emotion between individuals with ASD and neurotypicals (NTs). Behavioural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 46 young adults (aged 17-23 years, N_ASD = 22, N_NT = 24) was analysed. During fMRI data acquisition, participants discriminated between short clips of a face transitioning from a neutral to an emotional expression. Stimuli included four identities and six emotions. We performed behavioural, univariate, multi-voxel, adaptation and functional connectivity analyses to investigate potential group differences. The ASD-group did not differ from the NT-group on behavioural identity and expression processing tasks. At the neural level, we found no differences in average neural activation, neural activation patterns and neural adaptation to faces in face-related brain regions. In terms of functional connectivity, we found that amygdala seems to be more strongly connected to inferior occipital cortex and V1 in individuals with ASD. Overall, the findings indicate that neural representations of facial identity and expression have a similar quality in individuals with and without ASD, but some regions containing these representations are connected differently in the extended face processing network.

Only irrelevant angry, but not happy, expressions facilitate the response inhibition

It has been debated that arousal rather than valence modulates the response-inhibition process. The processing of irrelevant information of happy and angry faces interacts with attention differently. In the present study, arousal-matched irrelevant happy and angry faces were used as stop-signals in the stop-signal paradigm. Participants were required to respond to go-signals (discriminate between X or O). Occasionally, a stop-signal was presented where participants were required to withhold their motor response. Results indicate a significant effect of emotion on response inhibition, which suggests that valence of a stop-signal modulates inhibitory control. More specifically, we found that only irrelevant angry, but not happy, expressions facilitate the response inhibition process. These results have theoretical implications for understanding the nature of emotions and its interaction with cognitive control functions.

Deficits in recognizing female facial expressions related to social network in cocaine-addicted men

BACKGROUND

The ability to accurately recognise facial expressions of emotion is crucial for social functioning and maintaining healthy relationships. Recognising the emotional state of others allows us to respond to their needs and adjust our behaviour appropriately. Impairments in facial affect recognition have been reported in chronic cocaine users but little is known whether these contribute to their difficulties in social situations.

METHODS

We assessed facial emotional expression recognition in forty-five men with cocaine use disorder (CUD) and forty-four healthy control participants. Using standardised questionnaires, we also collected information on perceived social support, social provision and community integration.

RESULTS

Our results found that male cocaine users had greater difficulty in recognising female emotional facial expressions than male controls. This effect was not explained by demographic variables but it was associated with their social network; including social support, social provisions and community integration.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that men with CUD have greater difficulty in identifying emotional expression in female faces, which is linked with their social support networks. This may play an important role in misunderstanding non-verbal communications that contribute to destabilising friendship and family ties typically seen in drug addiction. Addressing deficits in recognising female emotional expressions may be an important piece of information for counselling and other interventions.

Do I dislike what you dislike? Investigating the effect of disgust on time processing

Time perception can be distorted by emotional stimuli. The present study aims to investigate the effect of disgust on time perception in young adults. Here, we report two experiments in which a time bisection task was used with intervals lasting 400 ms (short standard) to 1600 ms (long standard). In Experiment 1, temporal intervals were marked by neutral images or images from food (rotten, joyful), and facial (disgust, happy) categories. In Experiment 2, disgust-eliciting and neutral stimuli belonging to seven different domains were used: faces, food, animals, body products, injury/infections, death and hygiene. Results showed temporal overestimations when, compared to neutral conditions, disgusted faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and disgusting death and hygiene stimuli (Experiment 2) were used, and a temporal underestimation when images of rotten food (Experiment 1) were used. Results are discussed in terms of arousal-based and attention-based processes and showed that the degree of the emotional component influences time perception.

Lateralized Deficits of Disgust Processing After Insula-Basal Ganglia Damage

A growing body of evidence suggests a role of the insular cortex (IC) and the basal ganglia (BG) in the experience, expression, and recognition of disgust. However, human lesion research, probing this structure-function link, has yielded rather disparate findings in single cases of unilateral and bilateral damage to these areas. Comparative group approaches are needed to elucidate whether disgust-related deficits specifically follow damage to the IC-BG system, or whether there might be a differential hemispheric contribution to disgust processing. We examined emotional processing by means of a comprehensive emotional test battery in four patients with left- and four patients with right-hemispheric lesions to the IC-BG system as well as in 19 healthy controls. While single tests did not provide clear-cut separations of patient groups, composite scores indicated selective group effects for disgust. Importantly, left-lesioned patients presented attenuated disgust composites, while right-lesioned patients showed increased disgust composites, as compared to each other and controls. These findings propose a left-hemispheric basis of disgust, potentially due to asymmetrical representations of autonomic information in the human forebrain. The present study provides the first behavioral evidence of hemispheric lateralization of a specific emotion in the human brain, and contributes to neurobiological models of disgust.

Brain Activation in Contrasts of Microexpression Following Emotional Contexts

The recognition of microexpressions may be influenced by emotional contexts. The microexpression is recognized poorly when it follows a negative context in contrast to a neutral context. Based on the behavioral evidence, we predicted that the effect of emotional contexts might be dependent on neural activities. Using the synthesized microexpressions task modified from the Micro-Expression Training Tool (METT), we performed an functional MRI (fMRI) study to compare brain response in contrasts of the same targets following different contexts. Behaviorally, we observed that the accuracies of target microexpressions following neutral contexts were significantly higher than those following negative or positive contexts. At the neural level, we found increased brain activations in contrasts of the same targets following different contexts, which reflected the discrepancy in the processing of emotional contexts. The increased activations implied that different emotional contexts might differently influence the processing of subsequent target microexpressions and further suggested interactions between the processing of emotional contexts and of microexpressions.

Normative data for Emotion Hexagon test and frequency of impairment in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease

Social cognitive functions such as Theory of Mind, empathy and emotion recognition can be impaired in dementia spectrum disorders, especially in diseases with prominent frontal dysfunction. The Emotion Hexagon test (EHT) is a short test of basic emotion recognition. As with other social cognitive tests, normative data for this test is sparse. The aim of this study was to present regression-based normative data for the EHT. Further, we wished to investigate the frequency of impairment in patients with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD, N = 11), Alzheimer's disease (AD, N = 44) and Huntington's disease (HD, N = 52) when using regression-based normative data. The results documented that age (but not gender or education) had a significant effect on EHT score. The effect of age had numerical impact on expected scores in persons older than 60 years. Normative data (including percentile estimates) are presented. The EHT is sensitive to impairment in both bvFTD and HD, where more than 80% of patients had lower scores than expected. In both groups, 54% of patients fell below the 5th percentile-estimate, and in HD 65% fell below the 10th percentile-estimate. In the AD group 25% fell below the 10th percentile-estimate, and 14% fell below the 5th percentile-estimate. In conclusion, very low scores are typically associated with HD and bvFTD, but very poor performances can also be found in other diseases such like AD. Hopefully, the normative data presented and the documentation of their validity in clinical practice is a useful tool for clinicians.

Prediction of Anger Expression of Individuals with Psychiatric Disorders using the Developed Computational Codes based on the Various Soft Computing Algorithms

Anger is defined as a psychobiological emotional state that consists of feelings varying in intensity from mild irritation or annoyance to intense fury and rage. Dysfunction in anger regulation is marker of most psychiatric disorders. The most important point about anger regulation by the individuals is how to express anger and control it. The purpose of the present study is to predict the anger expression from the anger experience in individuals with psychiatric disorder for assessment of how to express and control the anger. To this end, the number of 3,000 subjects of individuals with clinical disorders had filled in the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-II (STAXI-II). After removing the uncertain diagnoses (900 subjects), the number of 2,100 data was considered in the analysis. Then, the computational codes based on three soft computing algorithms, including Radial Basis Function (RBF), Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and Decision Tree (DT) were developed to predict the scales of anger expression of the individuals with psychiatric disorders. The scales of anger experience were used as input data of the developed computational codes. Comparison between the results obtained from the DT, RBF and ANFIS algorithms show that all the developed soft computing algorithms forecast the anger expression scales with an acceptable accuracy. However, the accuracy of the DT algorithm is better than the other algorithms.

Cognition and Related Neural Findings on Methamphetamine Use Disorder: Insights and Treatment Implications From Schizophrenia Research

Despite the prevalence of methamphetamine (meth) use disorder, research on meth is disproportionately scarce compared to research on other illicit drugs. Existing evidence highlights cognitive deficits as an impediment against daily function and treatment of chronic meth use. Similar deficits are also observed in schizophrenia, and this review therefore draws on schizophrenia research by examining similarities and differences between the two disorders on cognition and related neural findings. While meth use disorder and schizophrenia are two distinct disorders, they are highly co-morbid and share impairments in similar cognitive domains and altered brain structure/function. This narrative review specifically identifies overlapping features such as deficits in learning and memory, social cognition, working memory and inhibitory/impulse control. We report that while working memory deficits are a core feature of schizophrenia, such deficits are inconsistently observed following chronic meth use. Similar structural and functional abnormalities are also observed in cortical and limbic regions between the two disorders, except for cingulate activity where differences are observed. There is growing evidence that targeting cognitive symptoms may improve functional outcome in schizophrenia, with evidence of normalized abnormal brain activity in regions associated with cognition. Considering the overlap between meth use disorder and schizophrenia, targeting cognitive symptoms in people with meth use disorder may also improve treatment outcome and daily function.