Heckmann Marc, Teichmann Bianca, Schröder Ulrike, Sprengelmeyer Reiner, Ceballos-Baumann Andrés O
Department of Dermatology, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich, Germany.
J Am Acad Dermatol. 2003 Aug;49(2):213-6. doi: 10.1067/s0190-9622(03)00909-5.
Individuals with intense frowning are commonly perceived as expressing negative emotions. Anger, fear, and sadness are associated with corrugator ("frown") muscle activity.
We sought to study how faces were perceived by others after denervation of frown muscles with localized botulinum toxin injections for treatment of facial frown lines.
Facial photographs were taken from volunteers before and after botulinum toxin injection. These photographs were shown to viewers who were naive to the procedure and asked to rate the expressed intensity of anger, sadness, fear, and happiness. As reference for this task we used a standard set of pictures of facial affect displaying different intensity levels for each emotion tested.
Of 40 viewers, 39 were able to discriminate different intensity levels (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) of emotional affect in the control task. According to their ratings faces with denervated frown muscle activity expressed relatively less anger (-40%), fear (-49%), sadness (-10%), and more happiness (+71%).
Frown muscle activity is essential for both negative and positive emotional expressions. Temporary denervation using botulinum toxin enhances the facial expression of positive emotion resulting in a shift rather than a loss of facial affect.
经常皱眉的人通常被认为在表达负面情绪。愤怒、恐惧和悲伤与皱眉肌（“皱眉”）的活动有关。
我们试图研究用局部注射肉毒杆菌毒素使皱眉肌失神经支配以治疗面部皱纹后，他人对面部表情的感知情况。
在志愿者注射肉毒杆菌毒素前后拍摄面部照片。将这些照片展示给不了解该操作的观察者，并要求他们对面部所表达的愤怒、悲伤、恐惧和快乐程度进行评分。作为此项任务的参考，我们使用了一组标准的面部表情图片，展示了每种测试情绪的不同强度水平。
在40名观察者中，39人能够在对照任务中区分不同强度水平（0%、25%、50%、75%和100%）的情绪影响。根据他们的评分，皱眉肌失神经支配活动的面部所表达的愤怒（-40%）、恐惧（-49%）、悲伤（-10%）相对较少，而快乐（+71%）相对较多。
皱眉肌活动对于负面和正面情绪表达都至关重要。使用肉毒杆菌毒素进行暂时失神经支配可增强正面情绪的面部表达，从而导致面部表情的转变而非丧失。
