Simon Daniela, Craig Kenneth D, Miltner Wolfgang H R, Rainville Pierre
Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena, Germany.
Pain. 2006 Dec 15;126(1-3):309-18. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2006.08.033. Epub 2006 Nov 7.
The facial expression of pain is a prominent non-verbal pain behaviour, unique and distinct from the expression of basic emotions. Yet, little is known about the neurobiological basis for the communication of pain. Here, subjects performed a sex-discrimination task while we investigated neural responses to implicit processing of dynamic visual stimuli of male or female faces displaying pain or angry expressions, matched on expression intensity and compared to neutral expression. Stimuli were presented in a mixed blocked/event-related design while blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal was acquired using whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 1.5 Tesla. Comparable sustained responses to pain and angry faces were found in the superior temporal sulcus (STS). Stronger transient activation was also observed to male expression of pain (Vs neutral and anger) in high-order visual areas (STS and fusiform face area) and in emotion-related areas including the amygdala (highest peak t-value=10.8), perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and SI. Male pain compared to anger expression also activated the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, SII/posterior insula and anterior insula. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the implicit processing of male pain expression triggers an emotional reaction characterized by a threat-related response. Unexpectedly, several areas responsive to male expression, including the amygdala, perigenual ACC, and somatosensory areas, showed a decrease in activation to female pain faces (Vs neutral). This sharp contrast in the response to male and female faces suggests potential differences in the socio-functional role of pain expression in males and females.
疼痛的面部表情是一种突出的非言语疼痛行为，独特且有别于基本情绪的表达。然而，对于疼痛交流的神经生物学基础却知之甚少。在此，受试者执行一项性别辨别任务，同时我们研究了他们对显示疼痛或愤怒表情的男性或女性面孔动态视觉刺激的隐式处理的神经反应，这些表情在强度上相互匹配，并与中性表情进行比较。刺激以混合组块/事件相关设计呈现，同时使用1.5特斯拉的全脑功能磁共振成像（fMRI）采集血氧水平依赖（BOLD）信号。在颞上沟（STS）发现了对疼痛和愤怒面孔的类似持续反应。在高阶视觉区域（STS和梭状面孔区）以及包括杏仁核（最高峰值t值 = 10.8）、膝周前扣带回皮质（ACC）和SI在内的情绪相关区域，也观察到对男性疼痛表情（与中性和愤怒表情相比）更强的瞬时激活。与愤怒表情相比，男性疼痛表情还激活了腹内侧前额叶皮质、SII/后岛叶和前岛叶。这与以下假设一致，即男性疼痛表情的隐式处理引发了以威胁相关反应为特征的情绪反应。出乎意料的是，几个对男性表情有反应的区域，包括杏仁核、膝周ACC和体感区域，对女性疼痛面孔（与中性面孔相比）的激活有所减少。对男性和女性面孔反应的这种鲜明对比表明，疼痛表情在男性和女性的社会功能作用方面可能存在差异。
