Functional integration of the posterior superior temporal sulcus correlates with facial expression recognition

Abstract

Face perception is essential for daily and social activities. Neuroimaging studies have revealed a distributed face network (FN) consisting of multiple regions that exhibit preferential responses to invariant or changeable facial information. However, our understanding about how these regions work collaboratively to facilitate facial information processing is limited. Here, we focused on changeable facial information processing, and investigated how the functional integration of the FN is related to the performance of facial expression recognition. To do so, we first defined the FN as voxels that responded more strongly to faces than objects, and then used a voxel-based global brain connectivity method based on resting-state fMRI to characterize the within-network connectivity (WNC) of each voxel in the FN. By relating the WNC and performance in the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test across participants, we found that individuals with stronger WNC in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (rpSTS) were better at recognizing facial expressions. Further, the resting-state functional connectivity (FC) between the rpSTS and right occipital face area (rOFA), early visual cortex (EVC), and bilateral STS were positively correlated with the ability of facial expression recognition, and the FCs of EVC-pSTS and OFA-pSTS contributed independently to facial expression recognition. In short, our study highlights the behavioral significance of intrinsic functional integration of the FN in facial expression processing, and provides evidence for the hub-like role of the rpSTS for facial expression recognition. Hum Brain Mapp 37:1930-1940, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Pushing the Limits of EEG: Estimation of Large-Scale Functional Brain Networks and Their Dynamics Validated by Simultaneous fMRI

“…Despite the small overall overlap (Dice coefficient of 0.1), the group activation maps of each imaging technique overlapped at the left pre-central gyrus, which is known to be involved in the processing of face expressions Radua et al, 2010). Although non-overlapping, relevant fMRI and EEG-ESI activations were found at the postcentral sulcus and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), the latter being the anchor of the FEPN (Srinivasan et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2016). The concordant activations at (or close to) pSTS are in agreement with our previous work (Direito et al, 2019), and also with a study specifically focused on the functional segmentation of the STS (Deen et al, 2015).…”

Dynamic functional network connectivity in idiopathic generalized epilepsy with generalized tonic-clonic seizure

“…Traditional FC analysis measures the correlations of signals within 5 minutes or more, with an assumption that the FC remains constant during the observation period [Biswal et al, ; Fox et al, ; Wang et al, ]. Based on this hypothesis, one can obtain a static pattern of brain activity coherence, which is essentially an average connectivity over the whole period of time.…”

Rostro‐caudal organization of the human posterior superior temporal sulcus revealed by connectivity profiles

“…Numerous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the pSTS also plays a vital role in social perception, which refers to the ability to recognize, manipulate, and behave with respect to socially relevant information (Jack & Morris, 2014;Lee, Gao, & McCarthy, 2014;Lieberman, 2007). The pSTS is also thought to be a key region in dynamic facial processing, such as changes in expression and gaze, which are important for social interactions (Engell & Haxby, 2007;Flack et al, 2015;Pelphrey, Morris, & McCarthy, 2004;Wang, Song, Zhen, & Liu, 2016). As a variety of studies have shown, the pSTS is more likely to be activated when both visual and auditory information are presented, whether they are related to speech processing or not (Beauchamp, Lee, Argall, & Martin, 2004;Hocking & Price, 2008;Watson, Latinus, Charest, Crabbe, & Belin, 2014).…”