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Chien YL, Tseng YL, Tsai WC, Chiu YN. Assessing Frontal Lobe Function on Verbal Fluency and Emotion Recall in Autism Spectrum Disorder by fNIRS. J Autism Dev Disord 2024:10.1007/s10803-024-06306-5. [PMID: 38635133 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-024-06306-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/21/2024] [Indexed: 04/19/2024]
Abstract
This study applied the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate frontal activity in autism when performing verbal fluency test and emotion recall task. We recruited 32 autistic adults without intellectual disability and 30 typically-developing controls (TDC). Prefrontal hemodynamic changes were evaluated by fNIRS when the participants performed the verbal fluency test and emotion recall task. fNIRS signals in the prefrontal cortex were compared between autism and TDC. Compared to TDC, autistic adults showed comparable performance on the verbal fluency test but exhibited lower frontal activity on the vegetable category. In the verbal fluency test, left frontal activity in TDC significantly increased in the vegetable category (vs. fruit category). In the emotion recall task, left frontal activity increased significantly in TDC when recalling emotional (vs. neutral) events. This increase of left frontal activity on the more difficult works was not found in autism. Similarly, brain activities were related to test performance only in TDC but not in autism. In addition, more severe social deficits were associated with lower frontal activity when recalling emotional events, independent of autism diagnosis. Findings suggested reduced frontal activity in autism, as compared to TDC, when performing verbal fluency tests. The reduction of left frontal activation in verbal fluency test and emotion recall tasks might reflect on the social deficits of the individual. The fNIRS may potentially be applied in assessing frontal lobe function in autism and social deficits in general population. Trial registration number: NCT04010409.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi-Ling Chien
- Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital & College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan.
- Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, No.7. Chung Shan South Road, Taipei, Taiwan.
| | - Yi-Li Tseng
- Department of Electrical Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
| | - Wen-Che Tsai
- Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital & College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Yen-Nan Chiu
- Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, No.7. Chung Shan South Road, Taipei, Taiwan
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Powers S, Han X, Martinez J, Dufford AJ, Metz TD, Yeh T, Kim P. Cannabis use during pregnancy and hemodynamic responses to infant cues in pregnancy: an exploratory study. Front Psychiatry 2023; 14:1180947. [PMID: 37743996 PMCID: PMC10512021 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1180947] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2023] [Accepted: 08/07/2023] [Indexed: 09/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Cannabis is one of the most commonly used substances during pregnancy and has the potential to negatively impact parent-infant relationships. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) response to infant cues during pregnancy has been associated with subsequent positive parenting behaviors. However, PFC activation is altered in individuals who use cannabis. As the potency of cannabis has changed over the years, little is known about the specific role of cannabis use on gestational parent brain responses to infant cues. Materials and methods Using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) in the second trimester of pregnancy, we measured hemodynamic responses to an infant cry task and an infant faces task among individuals who were using cannabis (N = 14) and compared them with those who were not using cannabis (N = 45). For the infant cry task, pregnant individuals listened to cry sounds and matched white noise. For the infant faces task, they viewed happy, sad, and neutral faces. Results There was no significant difference between the two groups after adjusting for multiple comparisons. Without adjusting for multiple comparisons, we found preliminary evidence for the differences in the dorsomedial PFC associated with heightened response to infant cry among individuals who use cannabis. The groups were also different in the dorsolateral PFC associated with decreased response to infant sad faces among individuals who use cannabis. Discussion Our preliminary data suggests that cannabis use during pregnancy was associated with brain activation in the regions involved in the emotional regulation and information processes. However, the results did not survive after adjustment for multiple comparisons, thus future research with larger sample sizes is needed to confirm potential differences in brain function among cannabis-using pregnant individuals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shannon Powers
- University of Denver, Psychology, Denver, CO, United States
| | - Xu Han
- University of Colorado, Computer Science, Boulder, CO, United States
| | | | - Alexander John Dufford
- Department of Medical Social Sciences and Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States
| | - Torri D. Metz
- University of Utah Health, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
| | - Tom Yeh
- University of Colorado, Computer Science, Boulder, CO, United States
| | - Pilyoung Kim
- University of Denver, Psychology, Denver, CO, United States
- Department of Psychology, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea
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Monteiro LCP, Ripardo RC, Torro-Alves N, Souza GS. Facial morphometric differences across face databases: influence of ethnicities and sex. Front Neurosci 2023; 17:1130867. [PMID: 37404467 PMCID: PMC10315459 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1130867] [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: 12/23/2022] [Accepted: 06/05/2023] [Indexed: 07/06/2023] Open
Abstract
The scientific need for standardized, high-quality facial stimuli has driven the creation of several face image databases in recent years. These stimuli are particularly important in facial asymmetry research. However, previous studies have reported facial anthropometric differences across a variety of ethnicities. This highlights the need to investigate whether these differences can also impact the use of face image databases, particularly in facial asymmetry research. In this study, we investigated facial asymmetry-based morphometric differences between the multi-ethnic Chicago Face Database (CFD) and the LACOP Face Database, which is composed of Brazilian subjects. We found reliable differences in facial asymmetry between the two databases, which were related to ethnic groups. Specifically, differences in eye and mouth asymmetry seem to drive these differences. The asymmetry-based morphometric differences among databases and ethnicities found in this study reinforce the necessity of creating multi-ethnic face databases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luis Carlos Pereira Monteiro
- Neuroscience and Cell Biology Graduate Program, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Brazil
- Center for Tropical Medicine, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Brazil
| | - Rachel Coelho Ripardo
- Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program, Center for Behavioral Theory and Research, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Brazil
| | - Nelson Torro-Alves
- Department of Psychology, Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil
| | - Givago Silva Souza
- Neuroscience and Cell Biology Graduate Program, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Brazil
- Center for Tropical Medicine, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Brazil
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Balconi M, Kopiś-Posiej N, Venturella I, Zabielska-Mendyk E, Augustynowicz P, Angioletti L. The Effect of Cognitive Strategies and Facial Attractiveness on Empathic Neural Responses. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2022; 19:14617. [PMID: 36361497 PMCID: PMC9656427 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph192114617] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2022] [Revised: 11/03/2022] [Accepted: 11/04/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Empathy is a phenomenon that brings together both emotions and an understanding of another person. Recent studies have disentangled the mechanisms of empathy into emotional and cognitive aspects. Event-related potential (ERP) studies suggest that emotional empathy is related to the modulation of the amplitude of early ERPs, and cognitive empathy is linked to later ERPs. In the current study, we examined the influences of facial attractiveness on empathic response and the effect of cognitive strategies with setting the participants' attention to attractiveness or pain. Participants (N= 19) viewed photos of physically attractive and unattractive men and women receiving painful stimulation. The amplitude of the N2 component measured at the frontal regions was more negative in painful stimulation compared to the non-painful, but only for attractive faces. There were no differences between painful and non-painful stimulation for unattractive faces. The amplitude of the P3 measured at the central-parietal region component was more positive in the painful condition compared to the non-painful one, but only when participants performed a pain judgment task. There were no differences in the attractiveness judgment task. This study showed that the attractiveness of a model and drawing the participants' attention to pain constitute an essential modulator of pain empathy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michela Balconi
- International Research Center for Cognitive Applied Neuroscience (IrcCAN), Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
- Research Unit in Affective and Social Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
| | - Natalia Kopiś-Posiej
- Department of Clinical Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Medical University of Lublin, 20-059 Lublin, Poland
- Department of Experimental Psychology, The Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
| | - Irene Venturella
- Research Unit in Affective and Social Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
| | - Emilia Zabielska-Mendyk
- Department of Experimental Psychology, The Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
| | - Paweł Augustynowicz
- Department of Experimental Psychology, The Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
| | - Laura Angioletti
- International Research Center for Cognitive Applied Neuroscience (IrcCAN), Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
- Research Unit in Affective and Social Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
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Zhu J, Yang Z, Ma R, Yin L, Hu X. Face beauty or soul beauty? The influence of facial attractiveness and moral judgment on pain empathy. Front Psychol 2022; 13:990637. [PMID: 36275267 PMCID: PMC9582988 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.990637] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2022] [Accepted: 09/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies indicated that both facial attractiveness (face beauty) and moral judgment (soul beauty) would impact the responses to others’ pain, however, the effects from facial attractiveness were in controversial. Furthermore, whether facial attractiveness would increase or decrease the effects of moral judgment on pain empathy were still unknown. Based on the videos in which actors with high versus low facial attractiveness under pain or non-pain conditions, study 1 recruited 26 undergraduates to assess the effects of facial attractiveness on participants’ pain intensity rating scores. Then study 2 recruited 85 undergraduates to examine the effects of facial attractiveness and moral judgment on pain empathy by assessing pain intensity and self-uncomfortableness rating scores. Study 1 found that participants rated higher pain intensity scores to actors with high facial attractiveness compared to low facial attractive actors under pain condition. Study 2 found that participants showed higher pain empathic responses for actors with high moral judgment, no matter their facial attractiveness were high or low. For actors with low moral judgment under pain condition, participants showed higher pain empathy to those with high facial attractiveness compared to those with low facial attractiveness. In conclusion, facial attractiveness could facilitate the empathy responses for other’s pain. High facial attractiveness would increase the pain empathic responses to individuals with low moral judgment, however, low facial attractiveness would not decrease the pain empathic responses to individuals with high moral judgment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiawen Zhu
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Zhou Yang
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Ruining Ma
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Lixing Yin
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Xucong Hu
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
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Abstract
Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. Understanding the neural mechanisms of acute and chronic pain and the brain changes affecting pain factors is important for finding pain treatment methods. The emergence and progress of non-invasive neuroimaging technology can help us better understand pain at the neural level. Recent developments in identifying brain-based biomarkers of pain through advances in advanced imaging can provide some foundations for predicting and detecting pain. For example, a neurologic pain signature (involving brain regions that receive nociceptive afferents) and a stimulus intensity-independent pain signature (involving brain regions that do not show increased activity in proportion to noxious stimulus intensity) were developed based on multivariate modeling to identify processes related to the pain experience. However, an accurate and comprehensive review of common neuroimaging techniques for evaluating pain is lacking. This paper reviews the mechanism, clinical application, reliability, strengths, and limitations of common neuroimaging techniques for assessing pain to promote our further understanding of pain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Luo
- Department of Sport Rehabilitation, Xian Physical Education University, Xian, China
- Department of Sport Rehabilitation, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
| | - Hui-Qi Zhu
- Department of Sport Rehabilitation, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
- Department of Sport Rehabilitation, Shenyang Sport University, Shenyang, China
| | - Bo Gou
- Department of Sport Rehabilitation, Xian Physical Education University, Xian, China.
| | - Xue-Qiang Wang
- Department of Sport Rehabilitation, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
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ADV at the Time of COVID-19 Brain Effect between Emotional Engagement and Purchase Intention. Brain Sci 2022; 12:brainsci12050593. [PMID: 35624980 PMCID: PMC9139764 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12050593] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2022] [Revised: 04/26/2022] [Accepted: 04/28/2022] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
In pandemic times, taking advantage of COVID-19-elicited emotions in commercials has been a popular tactic employed by corporations to build successful consumer engagement and, hopefully, increase sales. The present study investigates whether COVID-19-related emotional communication affects the consumer’s emotional response and the approach/avoidance motivation toward the brand—measured as a function of brain hemodynamic changes—as well as the purchase intentions. The functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) was employed to record neural correlates from the prefrontal cortex while the experimental and control groups were observing respectively COVID-19-related and unrelated advertisements (ads). The hemodynamic patterns suggest that COVID-19-related ads may promote deeper emotional elaboration, shifting consumers’ attention from the semantic meaning to the affective features and perhaps supporting a more favorable brand evaluation. Conversely, purchase intentions were only related to the pre-existing level of brand engagement. The findings suggest that leveraging the negative emotional potential of COVID-19 may not shift the explicit purchase intentions but could nonetheless boost emotional engagement, benefitting the final evaluation of the brand at an implicit level.
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Bonell S, Murphy SC, Griffiths S. Under the knife: Unfavorable perceptions of women who seek plastic surgery. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0257145. [PMID: 34492078 PMCID: PMC8423238 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2021] [Accepted: 08/24/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Plastic surgery is growing in popularity. Despite this, there has been little exploration to date regarding the psychosocial consequences of seeking plastic surgery. Our study investigated how women seeking plastic surgery are perceived by others. We presented a random sample of 985 adults (men = 54%, Mage = 35.84 years, SDage = 10.59) recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk with a series of experimental stimuli consisting of a photographed woman (attractive versus unattractive) and a vignette describing an activity she plans to engage in (plastic surgery versus control activity). Participants rated stimuli on perceived warmth, competence, morality, and humanness. We ran linear mixed-effect models to assess all study hypotheses. There was a negative plastic surgery effect; that is, women seeking plastic surgery were perceived less favorably than those planning to complete control activities across all outcome variables (warmth, competence, morality, and humanness). These relationships were moderated by physical attractiveness; while attractive women planning to undergo plastic surgery were perceived less favorably than attractive women planning to engage in control activities, perceptions of unattractive individuals remained unchanged by plastic surgery status. We theorized that empathy toward unattractive women seeking plastic surgery mitigated the negative plastic surgery effect for these women. In sum, our results suggest that perceptions of attractive women are worsened when these women decide to seek cosmetic surgery. Perceptions of warmth and competence have implications for an individual's self-esteem and interpersonal relationships, while perceptions of morality and humanness can impact an individual's ability to fulfil their psychological needs. As such, we concluded that attractive women seeking plastic surgery are potentially subject to experience negative psychosocial outcomes. Future research ought to examine whether perceptions and outcomes differ for women seeking reconstructive plastic surgery (versus cosmetic plastic surgery) and whether they differ across different types of surgeries (i.e. face versus body).
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Bonell
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Sean C. Murphy
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Scott Griffiths
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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Balconi M, Angioletti L. One's Interoception Affects the Representation of Seeing Others' Pain: A Randomized Controlled qEEG Study. Pain Res Manag 2021; 2021:5585060. [PMID: 33884043 PMCID: PMC8041555 DOI: 10.1155/2021/5585060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2021] [Revised: 03/17/2021] [Accepted: 03/23/2021] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Objective This research demonstrates that interoceptive attentiveness (IA) can modulate cortical oscillations related to the emotional and cognitive representations of observing pain in others. Methods Twenty participants were required to observe painful/nonpainful stimuli in an individual versus the interactive condition during the recording of the electroencephalogram. The sample was divided into experimental (EXP) and control (CTR) groups, and the EXP group was explicitly required to direct the attention on its interoceptive correlates while observing the stimuli. Results Mixed repeated measures, analyses of variance, were applied to each EEG frequency band. Significant findings were obtained mainly for theta and beta bands for the two groups. A hemispheric lateralisation effect was found, with right lateralisation of the theta band for the EXP group when observing painful stimuli and enhanced left activation of theta and beta bands for the CTR group when observing nonpainful stimuli. For both groups, frontal cortical regions were significantly sensitive to social scenarios, while posterior parietal activation was found for stimuli depicting the individual condition. Conclusions The results suggest that IA might enhance the emotional representation of painful stimuli, highlighting their negative and unpleasant features in the EXP group, while the attention of the CTR group was mainly drawn to nonpainful stimuli in social and individual conditions, with a positive valence. The role of frontal regions in the processing of social stimuli through social cognition, inducing emotional mirroring and requiring deeper analysis of the social context, was underlined. We propose that IA could be trained for promoting emotion regulation and empathic response.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michela Balconi
- International Research Center for Cognitive Applied Neuroscience (IrcCAN), Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
- Research Unit in Affective and Social Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
| | - Laura Angioletti
- International Research Center for Cognitive Applied Neuroscience (IrcCAN), Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
- Research Unit in Affective and Social Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
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