The iconography of mourning and its neural correlates: a functional neuroimaging study

Abstract

The present functional neuroimaging study focuses on the iconography of mourning. A culture-specific pattern of body postures of mourning individuals, mostly suggesting withdrawal, emerged from a survey of visual material. When used in different combinations in stylized drawings in our neuroimaging study, this material activated cortical areas commonly seen in studies of social cognition (temporo-parietal junction, superior temporal gyrus, and inferior temporal lobe), empathy for pain (somatosensory cortex), and loss (precuneus, middle/posterior cingular gyrus). This pattern of activation developed over time. While in the early phases of exposure lower association areas, such as the extrastriate body area, were active, in the late phases activation in parietal and temporal association areas and the prefrontal cortex was more prominent. These findings are consistent with the conventional and contextual character of iconographic material, and further differentiate it from emotionally negatively valenced and high-arousing stimuli. In future studies, this neuroimaging assay may be useful in characterizing interpretive appraisal of material of negative emotional valence.

Segregation, connectivity, and gradients of deactivation in neural correlates of evidence in social decision making

“…In our experiment, we asked participants to indicate the saddest individual from those shown in two pictures. Participants were divided into two groups, who viewed either facial expressions of varying degrees of sadness or stylized drawings of individuals without facial features depicted in scenes of mourning or in neutral scenes (Labek et al 2017). When deciding between faces, participants can rely on purely sensory information to make their choice (Vuilleumier et al 2003).…”

“…When deciding between faces, participants can rely on purely sensory information to make their choice (Vuilleumier et al 2003). In contrast, the scenes of mourning individuals provided minimal visual detail, and require considering the scenic context or inference about the mental state of the depicted individual to judge between degrees of sadness (Labek et al 2017).…”

“…In the first group, participants decided on the basis of two pictures of faces displaying varying degrees of sadness (Viviani et al 2018). In the second group, participants decided on the basis of stylized drawings of individuals in situations ranging from neutral to extreme sadness (mourning the loss of a loved one, Labek et al 2017). Using two separate groups of participants ensured that the strategy used in choosing between the alternatives was not biased by the fact that participants may have been exposed to both tasks, realizing the relationship between them.…”

“…The faces were displayed in frontal view from the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces inventory (KDEF, Lundqvist et al 1998), and were chosen so as to display varying degrees of sadness range from the neutral to the desperate. The scenes of mourning individuals and neutral scenes were taken from Labek et al (2017) (Figure 2).…”

Mirror neuron activations in encoding of psychic pain in borderline personality disorder

“…In the present functional neuroimaging study we assessed the differential activation of neural substrates of social cognition in BPD using a passive exposure paradigm in which participants viewed stylized drawings of scenes of mourning individuals compared to neutral pictures (Labek et al, 2017, Fig. 1).…”