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Del Vecchio M, Avanzini P, Gerbella M, Costa S, Zauli FM, d'Orio P, Focacci E, Sartori I, Caruana F. Anatomo-functional basis of emotional and motor resonance elicited by facial expressions. Brain 2024; 147:3018-3031. [PMID: 38365267 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awae050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2023] [Revised: 12/21/2023] [Accepted: 01/28/2024] [Indexed: 02/18/2024] Open
Abstract
Simulation theories predict that the observation of other's expressions modulates neural activity in the same centres controlling their production. This hypothesis has been developed by two models, postulating that the visual input is directly projected either to the motor system for action recognition (motor resonance) or to emotional/interoceptive regions for emotional contagion and social synchronization (emotional resonance). Here we investigated the role of frontal/insular regions in the processing of observed emotional expressions by combining intracranial recording, electrical stimulation and effective connectivity. First, we intracranially recorded from prefrontal, premotor or anterior insular regions of 44 patients during the passive observation of emotional expressions, finding widespread modulations in prefrontal/insular regions (anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, orbitofrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus) and motor territories (Rolandic operculum and inferior frontal junction). Subsequently, we electrically stimulated the activated sites, finding that (i) in the anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula, the stimulation elicited emotional/interoceptive responses, as predicted by the 'emotional resonance model'; (ii) in the Rolandic operculum it evoked face/mouth sensorimotor responses, in line with the 'motor resonance' model; and (iii) all other regions were unresponsive or revealed functions unrelated to the processing of facial expressions. Finally, we traced the effective connectivity to sketch a network-level description of these regions, finding that the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula are reciprocally interconnected while the Rolandic operculum is part of the parieto-frontal circuits and poorly connected with the former. These results support the hypothesis that the pathways hypothesized by the 'emotional resonance' and the 'motor resonance' models work in parallel, differing in terms of spatio-temporal fingerprints, reactivity to electrical stimulation and connectivity patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Del Vecchio
- Institute of Neuroscience, National Research Council of Italy (CNR), 43125 Parma, Italy
| | - Pietro Avanzini
- Institute of Neuroscience, National Research Council of Italy (CNR), 43125 Parma, Italy
| | - Marzio Gerbella
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, 43125 Parma, Italy
| | - Sara Costa
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, 43125 Parma, Italy
| | - Flavia Maria Zauli
- 'Claudio Munari' Epilepsy Surgery Center, ASST GOM Niguarda, 20142 Milan, Italy
| | - Piergiorgio d'Orio
- 'Claudio Munari' Epilepsy Surgery Center, ASST GOM Niguarda, 20142 Milan, Italy
| | - Elena Focacci
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, 43125 Parma, Italy
| | - Ivana Sartori
- 'Claudio Munari' Epilepsy Surgery Center, ASST GOM Niguarda, 20142 Milan, Italy
| | - Fausto Caruana
- Institute of Neuroscience, National Research Council of Italy (CNR), 43125 Parma, Italy
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Koob JL, Gorski M, Krick S, Mustin M, Fink GR, Grefkes C, Rehme AK. Behavioral and neuroanatomical correlates of facial emotion processing in post-stroke depression. Neuroimage Clin 2024; 41:103586. [PMID: 38428325 PMCID: PMC10944179 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2024.103586] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2023] [Revised: 02/24/2024] [Accepted: 02/25/2024] [Indexed: 03/03/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Emotion processing deficits are known to accompany depressive symptoms and are often seen in stroke patients. Little is known about the influence of post-stroke depressive (PSD) symptoms and specific brain lesions on altered emotion processing abilities and how these phenomena develop over time. This potential relationship may impact post-stroke rehabilitation of neurological and psychosocial function. To address this scientific gap, we investigated the relationship between PSD symptoms and emotion processing abilities in a longitudinal study design from the first days post-stroke into the early chronic phase. METHODS Twenty-six ischemic stroke patients performed an emotion processing task on videos with emotional faces ('happy,' 'sad,' 'anger,' 'fear,' and 'neutral') at different intensity levels (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%). Recognition accuracies and response times were measured, as well as scores of depressive symptoms (Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale). Twenty-eight healthy participants matched in age and sex were included as a control group. Whole-brain support-vector regression lesion-symptom mapping (SVR-LSM) analyses were performed to investigate whether specific lesion locations were associated with the recognition accuracy of specific emotion categories. RESULTS Stroke patients performed worse in overall recognition accuracy compared to controls, specifically in the recognition of happy, sad, and fearful faces. Notably, more depressed stroke patients showed an increased processing towards specific negative emotions, as they responded significantly faster to angry faces and recognized sad faces of low intensities significantly more accurately. These effects obtained for the first days after stroke partly persisted to follow-up assessment several months later. SVR-LSM analyses revealed that inferior and middle frontal regions (IFG/MFG) and insula and putamen were associated with emotion-recognition deficits in stroke. Specifically, recognizing happy facial expressions was influenced by lesions affecting the anterior insula, putamen, IFG, MFG, orbitofrontal cortex, and rolandic operculum. Lesions in the posterior insula, rolandic operculum, and MFG were also related to reduced recognition accuracy of fearful facial expressions, whereas recognition deficits of sad faces were associated with frontal pole, IFG, and MFG damage. CONCLUSION PSD symptoms facilitate processing negative emotional stimuli, specifically angry and sad facial expressions. The recognition accuracy of different emotional categories was linked to brain lesions in emotion-related processing circuits, including insula, basal ganglia, IFG, and MFG. In summary, our study provides support for psychosocial and neural factors underlying emotional processing after stroke, contributing to the pathophysiology of PSD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Janusz L Koob
- University Hospital Cologne, Department of Neurology, Cologne 50937, Germany
| | - Maximilian Gorski
- University Hospital Cologne, Department of Neurology, Cologne 50937, Germany
| | - Sebastian Krick
- University Hospital Cologne, Department of Neurology, Cologne 50937, Germany
| | - Maike Mustin
- University Hospital Cologne, Department of Neurology, Cologne 50937, Germany
| | - Gereon R Fink
- University Hospital Cologne, Department of Neurology, Cologne 50937, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Cognitive Neuroscience (INM-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich 52428, Germany
| | - Christian Grefkes
- University Hospital Cologne, Department of Neurology, Cologne 50937, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Cognitive Neuroscience (INM-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich 52428, Germany; Goethe University Frankfurt and University Hospital Frankfurt, Department of Neurology, Frankfurt am Main 60596, Germany.
| | - Anne K Rehme
- University Hospital Cologne, Department of Neurology, Cologne 50937, Germany
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Liu W, Li H, Lin X, Li P, Zhu X, Su S, Shi J, Lu L, Deng J, Sun X. Blunted superior temporal gyrus activity to negative emotional expression after mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for late-life depression. Front Aging Neurosci 2022; 14:1001447. [PMID: 36329872 PMCID: PMC9623567 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.1001447] [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: 07/23/2022] [Accepted: 09/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Facial emotion recognition plays an important role in social functioning. Patients with late-life depression (LLD) often have abnormal facial emotion recognition. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is beneficial in treating depression. This study examined whether MBCT can act as an effective augmentation of antidepressants and improve facial emotion recognition in patients with LLD and its underlying neural mechanism. Patients with LLD were randomized into two groups (n = 30 per group). The MBCT group received an eight-week MBCT in conjunction with stable medication treatment. The other group was treated as usual (TAU group) with stable medication treatment. The positive affect (PA) scale, negative affect (NA) scale, and facial emotion recognition task with an fMRI scan were performed before and after the trial. After eight weeks of treatment, the repeated ANOVA showed that the PA score in the MBCT group significantly increased [F(1,54) = 13.31, p = 0.001], but did not change significantly [F(1,54) = 0.58, p = 0.449] in the TAU group. The NA scores decreased significantly in both the MBCT group [F(1,54) = 19.01, p < 0.001] and the TAU group [F(1,54) = 16.16, p < 0.001]. Patients showed an increase in recognition accuracy and speed of angry and sad faces after 8 weeks of MBCT. No improvement was detected in the TAU group after treatment. A significant interaction effect was found in the change of activation of the left superior temporal gyrus (L-STG) to negative emotional expression between time and groups. Furthermore, a decrease in activation of L-STG to negative emotional expression was positively correlated with the increase in PA score. The MBCT is beneficial for improving affect status and facial emotion recognition in patients with LLD, and the L-STG is involved in this process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Weijian Liu
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Hui Li
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Xiao Lin
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Peng Li
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Ximei Zhu
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Sizhen Su
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Jie Shi
- National Institute on Drug Dependence and Beijing Key Laboratory of Drug Dependence, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Lin Lu
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
- National Institute on Drug Dependence and Beijing Key Laboratory of Drug Dependence, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences and PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China
- *Correspondence: Lin Lu,
| | - Jiahui Deng
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
- Jiahui Deng,
| | - Xinyu Sun
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
- Xinyu Sun,
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González-Alcaide G, Fernández-Ríos M, Redolat R, Serra E. Research on Emotion Recognition and Dementias: Foundations and Prospects. J Alzheimers Dis 2021; 82:939-950. [PMID: 34120903 DOI: 10.3233/jad-210096] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The study of emotion recognition could be crucial for detecting alterations in certain cognitive areas or as an early sign of neurological disorders. OBJECTIVE The main objective of the study is to characterize research development on emotion recognition, identifying the intellectual structure that supports this area of knowledge, and the main lines of research attracting investigators' interest. METHODS We identified publications on emotion recognition and dementia included in the Web of Science Core Collection, analyzing the scientific output and main disciplines involved in generating knowledge in the area. A co-citation analysis and an analysis of the bibliographic coupling between the retrieved documents elucidated the thematic orientations of the research and the reference works that constitute the foundation for development in the field. RESULTS A total of 345 documents, with 24,282 bibliographic references between them, were included. This is an emerging research area, attracting the interest of investigators in Neurosciences, Psychology, Clinical Neurology, and Psychiatry, among other disciplines. Four prominent topic areas were identified, linked to frontotemporal dementia, autism spectrum disorders, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's and Huntington disease. Many recent papers focus on the detection of mild cognitive impairment. CONCLUSION Impaired emotion recognition may be a key sign facilitating the diagnosis and early treatment of different neurodegenerative diseases as well as for triggering the necessary provision of social and family support, explaining the growing research interest in this area.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mercedes Fernández-Ríos
- Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Universitat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain.,Asociación Familiares Alzheimer Valencia (AFAV), Valencia, Spain
| | - Rosa Redolat
- Departamento de Psicobiología, Universitat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
| | - Emilia Serra
- Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Universitat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
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