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Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) researchers in the current issue of Cerebral Cortex, compared brain activation when an individual was shown a static face and then shown an emotional expression by an actor. The expressions were fearful, angry, and neutral. Brain regions implicated in processing facial affect, including the amygdala and fusiform gyrus, showed greater responses to dynamic versus static emotional expressions, especially for fear.
They also tested for identity changes described as identity morphs depicting identity changes from one person to another, always with neutral expressions. These identity morphs activated a dorsal fronto-cingulo-parietal circuit and additional ventral areas, including the amygdala, that also responded to the emotion morphs. The researchers also found that activity in the superior temporal sulcus discriminated emotion morphs from identity morphs, extending its known role in processing biologically relevant motion. The results highlight the importance of temporal cues in the neural coding of facial displays.
Studies such as this begin to offer insights into the processing of our reactions to emotions in others. Most of the previous studies in this area were done on individuals who had microsurgical tumor resection or intracerebral hemorrhage.
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