Yan Yuening, Zhan Jiayu, Garrod Oliver G B, Ince Robin A A, Jack Rachael E, Schyns Philippe G
School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QB, United Kingdom.
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Jun 24;122(25):e2423560122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2423560122. Epub 2025 Jun 17.
Emerging theories in cognitive neuroscience propose a third brain pathway dedicated to processing biological motion, alongside the established ventral and dorsal pathways. However, its role in computing dynamic social signals for behavior remains uncharted. Here, participants (N = 10) actively categorized dynamic facial expressions synthesized by a generative model and displayed on different face identities-as "happy," "surprise," "fear," "anger," "disgust," "sad"-while we recorded their MEG responses. Using representational interaction measures that link facial features with MEG activity and categorization behavior, we identified within each participant a functional social pathway extending from the occipital cortex to the superior temporal gyrus. This pathway selectively represents, communicates, and integrates facial movements that are essential for the behavioral categorization of emotion, while task-irrelevant identity features are filtered out in the occipital cortex. Our findings uncover how the third pathway selectively computes complex dynamic social signals for emotion categorization in individual participants, offering computational insights into the dynamics of neural activity.
认知神经科学中的新兴理论提出,除了已确立的腹侧和背侧通路外,还存在第三条专门用于处理生物运动的脑通路。然而,其在计算行为的动态社会信号方面的作用仍不明确。在这里,参与者(N = 10)积极地将由生成模型合成并显示在不同面部身份上的动态面部表情分类为“快乐”、“惊讶”、“恐惧”、“愤怒”、“厌恶”、“悲伤”,同时我们记录他们的脑磁图反应。使用将面部特征与脑磁图活动和分类行为联系起来的表征交互测量方法,我们在每个参与者体内确定了一条从枕叶皮质延伸到颞上回的功能性社会通路。这条通路选择性地表征、传递和整合对情绪行为分类至关重要的面部运动,而与任务无关的身份特征在枕叶皮质中被过滤掉。我们的研究结果揭示了第三条通路如何为个体参与者的情绪分类选择性地计算复杂的动态社会信号,为神经活动的动态提供了计算方面的见解。
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