Mu suppression differentiates between happy and angry faces in controls and people with traumatic brain injury (TBI).
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1
University of New South Wales, Australia
Aims: Mirror neurons, which are activated both when observing and performing actions, are thought to underlie social cognition, particularly emotional processing. The mu rhythm of electroencephalographic activity (EEG; 8 to 13 Hz), typically examined at sites across the motor cortex, has previously been found to be a non-invasive marker of mirror neuron activity, and may therefore be used to examine the social cognitive deficits often found in people with a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Method: 19 adults (15 male, Mean age 44.9, SD = 13.7) with TBI and 19 age, gender and education matched healthy controls viewed repeated presentations of static happy and angry facial expressions while EEG was recorded, and event-related power in the whole (8-13) mu band, as well as the lower (8-10 Hz) and upper (11-13 Hz) mu bands, was calculated for expression (happy vs. angry) and group (TBI vs. Controls).
Results: When data were examined at traditional mu related electrode sites (C3 and C4), there was a main effect of expression for the upper mu band as well as the whole mu band, such that there was more suppression in response to angry faces compared to happy across groups for both bands. However, when examined across brain regions (frontal, central parietal), a group by expression interaction was found for the whole alpha band, such that the control group showed more suppression in response to angry faces compared to happy, whereas the TBI group showed the opposite effect.
Conclusion: Findings suggest that mu rhythm recorded from central sites does differentiate between happy and angry facial expressions, suggesting that mirror neurons may indeed play a role in emotion processing. Further, results support previous work showing that individuals with TBI may have greater deficits in processing negative affect compared to controls, as evidenced by their reduced suppression to angry faces.
Keywords:
mirror neuron,
mirror neuron system,
emotion processing,
Traumatic Brain Injury,
mu suppression,
face processing
Conference:
ASP2016 - The 26th Annual Meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Adelaide Australia, Adelaide,SA, Australia, 12 Dec - 14 Dec, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Abstract (general)
Citation:
Kornfeld
EJ,
Rushby
JA,
De Blasio
FM and
McDonald
S
(2016). Mu suppression differentiates between happy and angry faces in controls and people with traumatic brain injury (TBI)..
Conference Abstract:
ASP2016 - The 26th Annual Meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Adelaide Australia.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2016.221.00010
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Received:
06 Nov 2016;
Published Online:
05 Dec 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Miss. Emma J Kornfeld, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, emma.kornfeld@student.unsw.edu.au