Post Coma and Rehabilitation Care Unit, San Raffaele Cassino, 03043 Cassino, Italy.
J Neurosci. 2010 Jun 9;30(23):7838-44. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6300-09.2010.
The involvement of facial mimicry in different aspects of human emotional processing is widely debated. However, little is known about relationships between voluntary activation of facial musculature and conscious recognition of facial expressions. To address this issue, we assessed severely motor-disabled patients with complete paralysis of voluntary facial movements due to lesions of the ventral pons [locked-in syndrome (LIS)]. Patients were required to recognize others' facial expressions and to rate their own emotional responses to presentation of affective scenes. LIS patients were selectively impaired in recognition of negative facial expressions, thus demonstrating that the voluntary activation of mimicry represents a high-level simulation mechanism crucially involved in explicit attribution of emotions.
面部模仿在人类情感处理的不同方面的参与作用备受争议。然而，对于自愿激活面部肌肉与有意识识别面部表情之间的关系却知之甚少。为了解决这个问题，我们评估了因脑桥腹侧损伤而导致完全丧失随意性面部运动能力的严重运动障碍患者[闭锁综合征（LIS）]。患者需要识别他人的面部表情，并对呈现的情感场景评估自己的情绪反应。LIS 患者在识别负面面部表情方面存在选择性障碍，这表明模仿的自愿激活代表了一种高级模拟机制，对于明确归因于情绪至关重要。
