Ginatempo Francesca, Loi Nicola, Zeroual Mohammed, Cadoni Marinella, Fadda Mauro, Lagorio Andrea, Deriu Franca
Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
Unit of Endocrinology, Nutritional and Metabolic Disorders, AOU Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
J Neurophysiol. 2025 Aug 1;134(2):543-558. doi: 10.1152/jn.00237.2024. Epub 2025 Jul 1.
The present work investigated how aging influences the different stages of face expression processing: fixation patterns, early perception, face motor response, and recognition. Thirty-four participants (17 young, 17 senior) were subjected to ) recording of fixation patterns, ) recording of the P100 and the N170 components of event-related potentials, ) excitability of short intracortical inhibition (SICI) and intracortical facilitation (ICF) of the face primary motor cortex (face M1), and ) recognition task during the passive viewing of neutral, happy, and sad faces expressions. Senior subjects mostly looked at the mouth, had reduced pupil size, and delayed N170 latency, regardless of expression, compared with young subjects, and a reduced P100 amplitude when viewing sad faces. Senior subjects' excitability of face M1 was enhanced compared to the young group; both groups had a reduced SICI when viewing happy faces, but only senior subjects exhibited reduced SICI for sad faces. Young subjects had better recognition accuracy and response times than senior ones, particularly for sad expressions. When viewing sad expressions, SICI was negatively correlated with recognition accuracy. Data suggested that aging reduces visual attention for sad faces, which appears to be connected to an increased excitability of face M1, which in turn is linked to their impaired recognition skills, especially when processing negative face expressions. These findings provide new insights into the comprehension of how aging affects cognitive functions and the process of face expression recognition. The study of the face expression processing in young and senior subjects evidenced that aging alters the fixation pattern for face expressions by reducing the visual attention toward sad faces. This alteration is associated with a reduced intracortical inhibition in face primary motor cortex, which correlates with compromised recognition abilities for sad face expressions.
注视模式、早期感知、面部运动反应和识别。34名参与者（17名年轻人，17名老年人）接受了以下测试：1）注视模式记录；2）事件相关电位的P100和N170成分记录；3）面部初级运动皮层（面部M1）的短皮质内抑制（SICI）和皮质内易化（ICF）的兴奋性测试；4）在被动观看中性、快乐和悲伤面部表情时的识别任务。与年轻受试者相比，老年受试者大多注视嘴巴，瞳孔尺寸减小，N170潜伏期延迟，且与表情无关，在观看悲伤表情时P100波幅降低。与年轻组相比，老年受试者面部M1的兴奋性增强；两组在观看快乐表情时SICI均降低，但只有老年受试者在观看悲伤表情时SICI降低。年轻受试者的识别准确率和反应时间优于老年受试者，尤其是对于悲伤表情。在观看悲伤表情时，SICI与识别准确率呈负相关。数据表明，衰老会降低对悲伤面部的视觉注意力，这似乎与面部M1兴奋性增加有关，而这又与他们受损的识别技能有关，尤其是在处理负面面部表情时。这些发现为理解衰老如何影响认知功能和面部表情识别过程提供了新的见解。对年轻和老年受试者面部表情处理的研究表明，衰老通过减少对悲伤面部的视觉注意力来改变面部表情的注视模式。这种改变与面部初级运动皮层皮质内抑制的减少有关，这与悲伤悲伤面部悲伤面部表情的识别能力受损相关。
