Beaton Elliott A, Schmidt Louis A, Schulkin Jay, Antony Martin M, Swinson Richard P, Hall Geoffrey B
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada.
Soc Neurosci. 2009;4(4):308-16. doi: 10.1080/17470910902801021. Epub 2009 Mar 25.
Although shyness is associated with deficits in different aspects of face processing including face recognition and facial emotions, we know relatively little about the neural correlates of face processing among individuals who are shy. Here we show reduced activation to stranger faces among shy adults in a key brain area involved in face processing. Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired on 12 shy and 12 social young adults during the rapid presentation of stranger and personally familiar neutral faces. Shy adults exhibited significantly less bilateral activation in the fusiform face area (FFA) in response to stranger faces and significantly greater bilateral activation in the same region to personally familiar faces than their social counterparts. Shy adults also exhibited significantly greater right amygdala activation in response to stranger faces than social adults. Among social adults, stranger faces elicited greater FFA activation than personally familiar faces. Findings suggest that there are distinct patterns of neural activation in the FFA in response to viewing stranger and personally familiar faces among shy and social adults.
尽管害羞与包括人脸识别和面部情绪在内的面部加工不同方面的缺陷有关，但我们对害羞个体面部加工的神经关联了解相对较少。在此，我们发现害羞成年人在参与面部加工的关键脑区对陌生面孔的激活减少。在快速呈现陌生和个人熟悉的中性面孔期间，对12名害羞的和12名善于社交的年轻成年人进行了事件相关功能磁共振成像扫描。与善于社交的同龄人相比，害羞成年人对陌生面孔的反应在梭状回面孔区（FFA）表现出显著更少的双侧激活，而对个人熟悉面孔在同一区域表现出显著更多的双侧激活。害羞成年人对陌生面孔的反应在右侧杏仁核也表现出比善于社交的成年人显著更大的激活。在善于社交的成年人中，陌生面孔比个人熟悉面孔引起更大的FFA激活。研究结果表明，在害羞和善于社交的成年人中，FFA对观看陌生和个人熟悉面孔的反应存在不同的神经激活模式。
