Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza Ateneo Nuovo, 1, 20126 Milano, Italy.
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza Ateneo Nuovo, 1, 20126 Milano, Italy.
Neuropsychologia. 2011 Apr;49(5):992-998. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.01.038. Epub 2011 Jan 31.
The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the right somatosensory cortex (rSC) are known to be involved in emotion processing and face expression recognition, although the possibility of segregated circuits for specific emotions in these regions remains unclear. To investigate this issue, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) together with a priming paradigm to modulate the activation state of the mPFC and the rSC during emotional expressions discrimination. This novel paradigm allows analyzing how TMS interacts with the ongoing activity of different neuronal populations following prime processing. Participants were asked to discriminate between angry and happy faces that were preceded by a congruent prime (a word expressing the same emotion), an incongruent prime (a word expressing the opposite emotion) or a neutral prime. In TMS trials, a single pulse was delivered over the mPFC, rSC or Vertex (control site) between prime and target presentation. TMS applied over the mPFC significantly affected the priming effect, by selectively increasing response latencies in congruent trials. This indicates that the mPFC contains different neural representations for angry and happy expressions. TMS over rSC did not significantly affect the priming effect, suggesting that rSC is not involved in processing verbal emotional stimuli.
内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）和右侧体感皮层（rSC）已知参与情绪处理和面部表情识别，尽管这些区域是否存在特定情绪的分离回路尚不清楚。为了研究这个问题，我们使用经颅磁刺激（TMS）结合启动范式来调节情绪表达识别过程中 mPFC 和 rSC 的激活状态。这个新的范式允许分析 TMS 如何在进行中的不同神经元群体的活动后与启动处理相互作用。参与者被要求区分愤怒和快乐的面孔，这些面孔之前是一致的启动（表达相同情绪的词）、不一致的启动（表达相反情绪的词）或中性的启动。在 TMS 试验中，在启动和目标呈现之间，在 mPFC、rSC 或顶点（对照部位）上施加单个脉冲。mPFC 上的 TMS 显著影响了启动效应，通过选择性地增加了一致试验中的反应时。这表明 mPFC 包含愤怒和快乐表情的不同神经表示。rSC 上的 TMS 对启动效应没有显著影响，表明 rSC 不参与处理言语情绪刺激。
