Emotional face processing in patients with social anxiety disorder: an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective:To explore the relevant brain regions of face/non-face processing, and face processing under different emotional valence in patients with social anxiety disorder(SAD).Methods:PubMed, Medline, ScienceDirect, CNKI and other databases were retrieved, and 31 peer-reviewed emotional face studies of SAD patients were obtained (facial and non-facial processing: 13 literatures, 481 subjects, 161 foci; face processing with different emotional titers: 18 literatures, 586 subjects, 331 foci). Cluster-level family-wise error (FWE, P<0.05) based coordinates of Talairach space was adopted. Results:Face processing in SAD patients activated the left amygdala (x=-18, y=-8, z=-12), the right amygdala (x=26, y=0, z=-20), the entorhinal cortex (Brodmann area 28, x=16, y=-8, z=-10) and the medial prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 10, x=2, y=44, z=-8). In addition, when SAD patients processed negative faces, the left amygdala (x=-26, y=0, z=-16), the right amygdala (x=26, y=0, z=-12), the left medial globus pallidus (x=-20, y=-10, z=-6) and right medial globus pallidus (x=20, y=-10, z=-6) had strong activation, which fear faces activated bilateral amygdala (left: x=-28, y=0, z=-16, right: x=28, y=-2, z=-12) and angry faces activated the medial globus pallidus (x=20, y=-8, z=-6).Conclusion:There are specific neural mechanisms for face processing in patients with SAD.Bilateral amygdala, entorhinal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex are key brain regions for face processing.The amygdala and medial globus pallidus are important neural regions for face processing of negative emotions.

Efectos de la expresión emocional y de la orientación del rostro sobre las respuestas conductuales y el componente N170 / Effects of emotional expresión and orientation of faces on behavioral and on N170 component

Resumen En este estudio se pretendió corroborar el efecto de inversión con estímulos de rostros calmos, de miedo e ira tomados de la base de datos de rostros calmos y emocionales NSTIM (base de datos de rostros), presentados de forma vertical e invertida, con una duración de presentación de 2000 milisegundos. Los resultados muestran que no hubo modulación del componente N170 tanto en latencia como en amplitud ante la presentación de rostros invertidos comparados con los rostros presentados verticalmente. Tampoco se encontró alteración en la precisión de la respuesta y demora en los tiempos de reacción ante los rostros invertidos comparados con los rostros verticales. Estos resultados probablemente se pueden explicar por la presentación prolongada de los rostros invertidos que permitieron a los participantes tener el tiempo para reorganizar los elementos que componen los rostros. El aporte de este estudio es poner en evidencia que el tiempo de presentación de rostros invertidos es crucial para que se presente el efecto de inversión de rostros, el cual debe estar entre 200 y 500 milisegundos.

Abstract The aim of this study was to confirm the inversion effect with calm, fear and anger faces taken from calm and emotional NSTIM (face database) face database presented in upright and upside down position. The duration of the stimuli was 2000 ms. There was no modulation in latency or amplitude of the N170 component for inverted faces. There was no alteration in accuracy and reaction times in inverted faces compared to vertical faces. These results could be explained by the long presentation of the inverted faces that probably permitted the participants to reorganize the elements that compose the face. The contribution of this study is to demonstrate that the time presentation of the inverted faces between 200 and 500 ms is crucial for the FIE to appear.

Neural Changes Associated with Emotion Processing in Children Experiencing Peer Rejection: A Functional MRI Study

This study was performed to investigate differences between children who did and did not experience peer rejection in psychological state through surveys and in emotion processing during an interpersonal stress challenge task to reflect naturalistic interpersonal face-to-face relationships. A total of 20 right-handed children, 10 to 12 yr of age, completed self-rating questionnaires inquiring about peer rejection in school, depression, and anxiety. They then underwent an interpersonal stress challenge task simulating conditions of emotional stress, in reaction to positive, negative and neutral facial expression stimuli, using interpersonal feedbacks, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) for an analysis of neural correlates during the task. Ten were the peer-rejection group, whereas the remainder were the control group. Based on the behavioral results, the peer-rejection group exhibited elevated levels of depression, state anxiety, trait anxiety and social anxiety as compared to the control group. The FMRI results revealed that the peer-rejection group exhibited greater and remarkably more extensive activation of brain regions encompassing the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in response to negative feedback stimuli of emotional faces. The different brain reactivities characterizing emotion processing during interpersonal relationships may be present between children who do and do not experience peer rejection.

A novel polar-based human face recognition computational model

Motivated by a recently proposed biologically inspired face recognition approach, we investigated the relation between human behavior and a computational model based on Fourier-Bessel (FB) spatial patterns. We measured human recognition performance of FB filtered face images using an 8-alternative forced-choice method. Test stimuli were generated by converting the images from the spatial to the FB domain, filtering the resulting coefficients with a band-pass filter, and finally taking the inverse FB transformation of the filtered coefficients. The performance of the computational models was tested using a simulation of the psychophysical experiment. In the FB model, face images were first filtered by simulated V1- type neurons and later analyzed globally for their content of FB components. In general, there was a higher human contrast sensitivity to radially than to angularly filtered images, but both functions peaked at the 11.3-16 frequency interval. The FB-based model presented similar behavior with regard to peak position and relative sensitivity, but had a wider frequency band width and a narrower response range. The response pattern of two alternative models, based on local FB analysis and on raw luminance, strongly diverged from the human behavior patterns. These results suggest that human performance can be constrained by the type of information conveyed by polar patterns, and consequently that humans might use FB-like spatial patterns in face processing.