Department of Ophthalmology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
Department of Optometry and Visual Science, West China Hospital of Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2024 Nov 18;19(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae076.
Investigating the neural processing of emotion-related neural circuits underlying emotional facial processing may help in understanding mental disorders. We used two subscales of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) to assess the emotional cognitive of 25 healthy participants. A higher score indicates greater difficulty in emotional perception. In addition, participants completed a n-back task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Psychophysiological interaction analysis was used to explore the functional connectivity (FC) of neural circuits. Next, we used elastic-net regression analysis for feature selection and conducted correlation analysis between the neuroimaging measures and questionnaire scores. Following a 3-fold cross-validation, five neuroimaging measures emerged as significant features. Results of correlation analysis demonstrated that participants with higher TAS scores exhibited increased FC between the amygdala and occipital face area during facial stimulus processing, but decreased connectivity during emotional processing. These findings suggested that individuals with poor emotional recognition exhibited increased connectivity among face-related brain regions during facial processing. However, during emotional processing, decreasing neural synchronization among neural circuits involved in emotional processing affects facial expression processing. These findings suggest potential neural marker related to subjective emotional perception, which may contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of emotional dysregulation in individuals with psychiatric conditions.
研究情绪相关神经回路的神经处理，可能有助于理解精神障碍。我们使用多伦多述情障碍量表（TAS）的两个分量表来评估 25 名健康参与者的情绪认知。得分越高表示情绪感知越困难。此外，参与者在功能磁共振成像期间完成了 n-back 任务。使用心理生理交互分析来探索神经回路的功能连接（FC）。接下来，我们使用弹性网络回归分析进行特征选择，并对神经影像学测量值和问卷评分进行相关性分析。经过 3 倍交叉验证，有 5 个神经影像学测量值被确定为显著特征。相关性分析的结果表明，TAS 得分较高的参与者在处理面部刺激时，杏仁核和枕部面孔区之间的 FC 增加，但在处理情绪时的连接减少。这些发现表明，情绪识别能力差的个体在处理面部时，与面部相关的大脑区域之间的连接增加。然而，在情绪处理过程中，情绪处理相关神经回路的神经同步性降低，影响了面部表情处理。这些发现提示了与主观情绪感知相关的潜在神经标记物，可能有助于诊断和治疗精神疾病患者的情绪失调。
