Laboratory of Neurobiology, Division of Cell & Developmental Biology, University College London, London, UK.
Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany.
Eur J Neurosci. 2022 Jan;55(1):91-106. doi: 10.1111/ejn.15543. Epub 2021 Dec 8.
The perception of faces correlates with activity in a number of brain areas, but only when a face is perceived as beautiful is the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) also engaged. Here, we enquire whether it is the emergence of a particular pattern of neural activity in face perceptive areas during the experience of a face as beautiful that determines whether there is, as a correlate, activity in mOFC. Seventeen subjects of both genders viewed and rated facial stimuli according to how beautiful they perceived them to be while the activity in their brains was imaged with functional magnetic resonance imaging. A univariate analysis revealed parametrically scaled activity within several areas, including the occipital face area (OFA), fusiform face area (FFA) and the cuneus; the strength of activity in these areas correlated with the declared intensity of the aesthetic experience of faces; multivariate analyses showed strong patterns of activation in the FFA and the cuneus and weaker patterns in the OFA and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). The mOFC was only engaged when specific patterns of activity emerged in these areas. A psychophysiological interaction analysis with mOFC as the seed area revealed the involvement of the right FFA and the right OFA. We conjecture that it is the collective specific pattern-based activity in these face perceptive areas, with activity in the mOFC as a correlate, that constitutes the neural basis for the experience of facial beauty, bringing us a step closer to understanding the neural determinants of aesthetic experience.
面部感知与大脑多个区域的活动相关，但只有当面部被感知为美丽时，中眶额皮质（mOFC）才会被激活。在这里，我们探讨的是，在体验美丽的面部时，面部感知区域中是否出现了特定的神经活动模式，这是否决定了 mOFC 是否存在活动作为相关物。17 名男性和女性受试者在观看和评价面部刺激时，根据他们认为面部的美丽程度进行评价，同时用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）对他们的大脑活动进行成像。单变量分析显示，在包括枕面区（OFA）、梭状回面部区（FFA）和楔前叶在内的几个区域内，活动呈参数比例增加；这些区域的活动强度与面部审美体验的强度呈正相关；多变量分析显示，FFA 和楔前叶有强烈的激活模式，而 OFA 和后上颞叶沟（pSTS）的激活模式较弱。只有当这些区域出现特定的活动模式时，mOFC 才会被激活。以 mOFC 为种子区域的心理生理交互分析显示，右侧 FFA 和右侧 OFA 也参与其中。我们推测，正是这些面部感知区域中基于特定模式的集体活动，以及 mOFC 的活动作为相关物，构成了面部美丽体验的神经基础，使我们更接近理解审美体验的神经决定因素。
