Arslanova Irena, Meletaki Vasiliki, Calvo-Merino Beatriz, Forster Bettina
Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK; Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK.
Cortex. 2023 Oct;167:223-234. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.06.010. Epub 2023 Jul 19.
Somatosensory cortex (SCx) has been shown to crucially contribute to early perceptual processes when judging other's emotional facial expressions. Here, we investigated the specificity of SCx activity to angry, happy, sad and neutral emotions and the role of personality factors. We assessed participants' alexithymia (TAS-20) and depression (BDI) levels, their cardioceptive abilities and recorded changes in neural activity in a facial emotion judgment task. During the task, we presented tactile probes to reveal neural activity in SCx which was then isolated from visual carry-over responses. We further obtain SCx emotion effects by subtracting SCx activity elicited by neutral emotion expressions from angry, happy, and sad expressions. We find preliminary evidence for distinct modulations of SCx activity to angry and happy expressions. Moreover, the SCx anger response was predicted by individual differences in trait alexithymia. Thus, emotion expressions of others may be distinctly presented in the observer's neural body representation and may be shaped by their personality trait.
体感皮层（SCx）已被证明在判断他人情绪面部表情时对早期感知过程起着至关重要的作用。在此，我们研究了SCx活动对愤怒、快乐、悲伤和中性情绪的特异性以及人格因素的作用。我们评估了参与者的述情障碍（TAS - 20）和抑郁（BDI）水平、他们的心脏感受能力，并记录了面部情绪判断任务中的神经活动变化。在任务期间，我们呈现触觉探针以揭示SCx中的神经活动，然后将其与视觉残留反应分离。我们通过从愤怒、快乐和悲伤表情引发的SCx活动中减去中性情绪表情引发的SCx活动，进一步获得SCx情绪效应。我们发现了SCx活动对愤怒和快乐表情有不同调制的初步证据。此外，述情障碍特质的个体差异预测了SCx的愤怒反应。因此，他人的情绪表情可能在观察者的神经身体表征中被清晰呈现，并且可能受到他们人格特质的影响。
