Lin Tian, Pehlivanoglu Didem, Ziaei Maryam, Liu Peiwei, Woods Adam J, Feifel David, Fischer Håkan, Ebner Natalie C
Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
Front Psychol. 2022 Jun 23;13:838642. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.838642. eCollection 2022.
The amygdala has been shown to be responsive to face trustworthiness. While older adults typically give higher face trustworthiness ratings than young adults, a direct link between amygdala response and age-related differences in face trustworthiness evaluation has not yet been confirmed. Additionally, there is a possible modulatory role of the neuropeptide oxytocin in face trustworthiness evaluation, but the results are mixed and effects unexplored in aging. To address these research gaps, young, and older adults were randomly assigned to oxytocin or placebo self-administration a nasal spray before rating faces on trustworthiness while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. There was no overall age-group difference in face trustworthiness ratings, but older compared to young participants gave higher trustworthiness ratings to ambivalently untrustworthy-looking faces. In both age groups, lower face trustworthiness ratings were associated with higher left amygdala activity. A comparable negative linear association was observed in right amygdala but only among young participants. Also, in the right amygdala, lower and higher, compared to moderate, face trustworthiness ratings were associated with greater right amygdala activity (i.e., positive quadratic (U-shaped) association) for both age groups. Neither the behavioral nor the brain effects were modulated by a single dose of intranasal oxytocin administration, however. These results suggest dampened response to faces with lower trustworthiness among older compared to young adults, supporting the notion of reduced sensitivity to cues of untrustworthiness in aging. The findings also extend evidence of an age-related positivity effect to the evaluation of face trustworthiness.
杏仁核已被证明对面部的可信度有反应。虽然老年人通常比年轻人对面部可信度的评分更高，但杏仁核反应与面部可信度评估中与年龄相关的差异之间的直接联系尚未得到证实。此外，神经肽催产素在面部可信度评估中可能具有调节作用，但结果不一，且在衰老过程中的影响尚未得到探索。为了填补这些研究空白，在进行功能磁共振成像时，将年轻人和老年人随机分为两组，分别在对面部可信度进行评分前自行鼻腔喷雾给予催产素或安慰剂。面部可信度评分在总体年龄组之间没有差异，但与年轻参与者相比，老年参与者对看起来矛盾不可信的面部给予了更高的可信度评分。在两个年龄组中，较低的面部可信度评分都与左侧杏仁核的较高活动有关。在右侧杏仁核中也观察到了类似的负线性关联，但仅在年轻参与者中存在。此外，在右侧杏仁核中，与中等可信度评分相比，较低和较高的面部可信度评分在两个年龄组中都与右侧杏仁核的更大活动有关（即正二次（U形）关联）。然而，单剂量鼻内给予催产素并未调节行为或大脑效应。这些结果表明，与年轻人相比，老年人对可信度较低的面部反应减弱，支持了衰老过程中对不可信线索敏感性降低的观点。这些发现还将与年龄相关的积极效应的证据扩展到了对面部可信度的评估。
