Dataset Information

Increased Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Decreased Zygomaticus Activation in Response to Disliked Smiles Suggest Top-Down Inhibition of Facial Mimicry.

ABSTRACT: Spontaneous facial mimicry is modulated by many factors, and often needs to be suppressed to comply with social norms. The neural basis for the inhibition of facial mimicry was investigated in a combined functional magnetic resonance imaging and electromyography study in 39 healthy participants. In an operant conditioning paradigm, face identities were associated with reward or punishment and were later shown expressing dynamic smiles and anger expressions. Face identities previously associated with punishment, compared to reward, were disliked by participants overall, and their smiles generated less mimicry. Consistent with previous research on the inhibition of finger/hand movements, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was activated when previous conditioning was incongruent with the valence of the expression. On such trials there was also greater functional connectivity of the mPFC with insula and premotor cortex as tested with psychophysiological interaction, suggesting inhibition of areas associated with the production of facial mimicry and the processing of facial feedback. The findings suggest that the mPFC supports the inhibition of facial mimicry, and support the claim of theories of embodied cognition that facial mimicry constitutes a spontaneous low-level motor imitation.

SUBMITTER: Korb S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6677088 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Increased Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Decreased Zygomaticus Activation in Response to Disliked Smiles Suggest Top-Down Inhibition of Facial Mimicry.

Korb Sebastian S Goldman Robin R Davidson Richard J RJ Niedenthal Paula M PM

Frontiers in psychology 20190726

Spontaneous facial mimicry is modulated by many factors, and often needs to be suppressed to comply with social norms. The neural basis for the inhibition of facial mimicry was investigated in a combined functional magnetic resonance imaging and electromyography study in 39 healthy participants. In an operant conditioning paradigm, face identities were associated with reward or punishment and were later shown expressing dynamic smiles and anger expressions. Face identities previously associated ...[more]

PMID: 31402888

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Project description:Previous neuroimaging studies have suggested that the experience of flow aligns with a relative increase in activation of the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), and relative activation decreases of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and of the amygdala (AMY). In the present study, Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) was used to explore effective connectivity between those brain regions. To test our hypothesis that the DRN causally down-regulates activity of the MPFC and/or of the AMY, 23 healthy male students solved mental arithmetic tasks of varying difficulty during functional magnetic resonance imaging. A "flow" condition, with task demands automatically balanced with participants' skill level, was compared with conditions of "boredom" and "overload". DCM models were constructed modeling full reciprocal endogenous connections between the DRN, the MPFC, the AMY, and the calcarine. The calcarine was included to allow sensory input to enter the system. Experimental conditions were modeled as exerting modulatory effects on various possible connections between the DRN, the MPFC, and the AMY, but not on self-inhibitory connections, yielding a total of 64 alternative DCM models. Model space was partitioned into eight families based on commonalities in the arrangement of the modulatory effects. Random effects Bayesian Model Selection (BMS) was applied to identify a possible winning family (and model). Although BMS revealed a clear winning family, an outstanding winning model could not be identified. Therefore, Bayesian Model Averaging was performed over models within the winning family to obtain representative DCM parameters for subsequent analyses to test our hypothesis. In line with our expectations, Bayesian averaged parameters revealed stronger down-regulatory influence of the DRN on the MPFC when participants experienced flow relative to control conditions. In addition, these condition-dependent modulatory effects significantly predicted participants' experienced degree of flow. The AMY was down-regulated irrespective of condition. The present results suggest a causal role for the DRN in modulating the MPFC, contributing to the experience of flow.

Dataset Information

Increased Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Decreased Zygomaticus Activation in Response to Disliked Smiles Suggest Top-Down Inhibition of Facial Mimicry.

Publications

Increased Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Decreased Zygomaticus Activation in Response to Disliked Smiles Suggest Top-Down Inhibition of Facial Mimicry.

Similar Datasets

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