Citation

Monte OD, Krueger F, Solomon J, Schintu S, Knutson KM, Strenziok M, Pardini M, Leopold A, Raymont V, Grafman J. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2013; 8(6): 632-639.

Affiliation

Department of Molecular Neuroscience George Mason University 4400 University Drive, Mail Stop 2A1 Fairfax, Virginia 22030, USA KruegerF@gmu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/scan/nss041

PMID

22496440

Abstract

The ability to read emotions in other people's face is an important social skill that can be impaired in subjects with traumatic brain injury (TBI). To determine the brain regions that modulate facial emotion recognition, we conducted a whole-brain analysis using a well-validated facial emotion recognition task and voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) in a large sample of patients with focal penetrating TBIs (pTBIs). Our results revealed that individuals with pTBI performed significantly worse than normal controls in recognizing unpleasant emotions. VSLM mapping results showed that impairment in facial emotion recognition was due to damage in a bilateral fronto-temporo-limbic network including medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), anterior cingulate cortex, left insula and temporal areas. Beside those common areas, damage to the bilateral and anterior regions of PFC led to impairment in recognizing unpleasant emotions, whereas bilateral posterior PFC and left temporal areas led to impairment in recognizing pleasant emotions. Our findings adds empirical evidence indicating that the ability to read pleasant and unpleasant emotions in other people's faces is a complex process involving a common bilateral fronto-temporo-limbic network, but also unique bilateral brain regions responsible for recognizing emotional valence.

Language: en