Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua , Padua , Italy.
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy.
Soc Neurosci. 2019 Dec;14(6):697-704. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2019.1574891. Epub 2019 Feb 6.
Infant signals, including infant sounds and facial expressions, play a critical role in eliciting parental proximity and care. Processing of infant signals in the adulthood brain is likely to recruit emotional empathy neural circuits, including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Here, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to test the role of right IFG (rIFG) in behavioral responses to infant signals. Specifically, a group of nulliparous women were asked to perform a handgrip dynamometer task and an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) after receiving TMS over the right IFG or over a control site (vertex). Suppressing activity in the rIFG affected the modulation of handgrip force in response to infant crying. Moreover, the AAT showed that participants tend to avoid the sad infant face after Vertex stimulation, and this bias was counteracted by rIFG stimulation. Our results suggest a causal role of rIFG in sensitive responding towards sad infants and point to the rIFG as a critical node in the neural network underlying the innate releasing mechanism for feelings of love, affection and caring of sad infants.
婴儿的信号，包括婴儿的声音和面部表情，在引起父母的亲近和关怀方面起着至关重要的作用。成人大脑中对婴儿信号的处理可能会招募情感同理心神经回路，包括下额前回（IFG）。在这里，我们使用经颅磁刺激（TMS）来测试右侧 IFG（rIFG）在对婴儿信号的行为反应中的作用。具体来说，一组未婚女性在接受 rIFG 或对照部位（顶点）的 TMS 刺激后，被要求执行握力测力计任务和接近回避任务（AAT）。抑制 rIFG 的活动会影响对婴儿哭声的握力调节。此外，AAT 表明，参与者在顶点刺激后倾向于回避悲伤的婴儿面孔，而这种偏差会被 rIFG 刺激抵消。我们的结果表明 rIFG 在对悲伤婴儿的敏感反应中起着因果作用，并指出 rIFG 是悲伤婴儿的爱、情感和关怀的先天释放机制的神经网络中的一个关键节点。
