Gamma oscillations in the human somatosensory cortex reflect facial affect discrimination
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1
University of Konstanz, Germany
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2
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
Embodiment theories suggest that reproduction of a certain (emotional) state in one’s own mind is crucial for understanding the emotional states of others. The face area in the somatosensory cortex (SC) may be involved in such reproduction, as indicated by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies on the processing of facial expression. Oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency range may be a measure of such processing, as it is thought to reflect the neuronal interaction within neocortical networks subserving functions such as perceptual binding. The present magnetoencephalographic study tested the hypothesis that the recognition of a change in facial affect from neutral to emotional was associated with synchronization in the gamma frequency band in the SC. Thirty healthy subjects monitored 120 face morphing videos of 5s length, each starting with a face exhibiting a neutral expression which changed into either fearful or happy expression, or with respect to a facial feature (e.g., nose length) but not emotional expression. Changes of facial expression from neutral to emotional evoked gamma frequency band synchronization (20-40Hz) relative to changes with facial expression remaining identical. Beamformer source localization confirmed the origin of this gamma band synchronization in bilateral somatosensory cortical areas. Parallel ratings showed that subjects successfully recognized the change in emotional expression at 33-66% morphing – and maximum gamma band synchronization (GBS) was found at the time this proportion of change was achieved. Results suggest that the processing of facial expression, which results in the recognition of emotional expression, is reflected in neuronal synchronization in the gamma frequency band within the somatosensory face area. Funding: Research was supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG, Ro805/14).
Keywords:
emotion,
TMS
Conference:
XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster Sessions: Emotion, Motivation and the Social Brain
Citation:
Popov
T,
Weisz
N,
Elbert
T,
Miller
GM and
Rockstroh
B
(2011). Gamma oscillations in the human somatosensory cortex reflect facial affect discrimination.
Conference Abstract:
XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00157
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Received:
18 Nov 2011;
Published Online:
28 Nov 2011.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Tzvetan Popov, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany, tzvetan.popov@uni-konstanz.de