Data-driven analysis of gaze patterns in face perception: Methodological and clinical contributions

Valproic acid exposure affects social visual lateralization and asymmetric gene expression in zebrafish larvae

“…Several studies suggest alterations in brain lateralization in ASD. Neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies mainly focused on lateralized response to speech and face processing, demonstrating changes in ASD patients already at early developmental stages (Dundas et al, 2012b(Dundas et al, , 2012aDonati et al, 2020;Masulli et al, 2022).…”

“…In vertebrates with front-facing eyes and binocular vision, such as humans, lateralized processing can be documented and measured through the observation of visual field biases, as, for example, the strong left visual field bias demonstrated in humans in face detection 25,26 and emotional processing see for a review 27 . In addition to aberrant lateralized responses to speech and in language processing, lack of left visual field bias in face and emotional processing have been extensively reported in ASD 28–30 , suggesting altered functional and structural lateralization already at early developmental stages 31 . On the same line, neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies have indicated altered patterns of lateralized activation in cortical brain areas associated with configurational information and categorization of faces (e.g., fusiform face area) 32–36 .…”

“…A difference in the prevalence of left-handedness has also been observed in individuals with ASD, suggesting atypicality in cerebral structure and language processing lateralization (Markou et al, 2017). In addition to aberrant lateralized responses to speech and language processing, lack of left visual field bias in face and emotional processing (Dundas et al, 2012b, 2012a; Masulli et al, 2022) have been extensively reported in ASD, suggesting altered functional lateralization already at early developmental stages (Donati et al, 2020). Moreover, neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies have described an altered pattern of lateralized activation in cortical brain areas (e.g., fusiform face area) associated with configurational information and categorization of faces (Webb et al, 2006; McCleery et al, 2009; Keehn et al, 2015; Jones et al, 2016; Shephard et al, 2020).…”

The Neurobiological Correlates of Gaze Perception in Healthy Individuals and Neurologic Patients

“…Recent growing evidence suggests that non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (NIBS) can be used to induce neuroplasticity in order to modulate cognition and behavior [121,122], unveiling the critical role of specific neural circuits [123,124]. Therefore, NIBS might be applied to modulate low-level mechanisms that mediate, for example, attentional orienting to gaze cues, highlighting the functional role of brain areas (i.e., the amygdala and STS) in the gaze-cueing effect (see Figure 2) [21,[125][126][127]. Direct evidence for the roles of the STS and amygdala in gaze processing can also be derived from brain-damaged patients.…”

“…Gaze-cueing is considered an involuntary and reflexive effect (see [12,13] for a review), and it is assumed to occur rapidly due to the pivotal role of gaze as a social and biological trigger [14]. However, gaze-cueing is not an encapsulated effect, as it seems to be permeable to contextual influences carried by the face [15], such as facial expression [16][17][18][19] and social (e.g., familiarity) or perceptual (e.g., dominance) characteristics [10,20,21]. It is crucial to mention that within a neuroimaging context, it is possible to investigate the neural bases of gaze-cueing (i.e., the fMRI contrast involving averted and direct gaze observation, in the presence of a concomitant behavioral task to measure the gaze-cueing effect) and the neural correlates of gaze direction (i.e., the fMRI contrast between averted and direct gaze observation in the absence of a concomitant behavioral task to measure the gazecueing effect).…”