The Motor Cortex and Facial Expression:

Morecraft, Robert J.; Stilwell-Morecraft, Kimberly S.; Rossing, William R

doi:10.1097/01.nrl.0000138734.45742.8d

Cited by 165 publications

(133 citation statements)

References 104 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

113

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…On the other hand, activation in the SMA was similarly increased during ESUP and natural viewing (NAT), relative to both the neutral baseline condition and REAP. This is consistent with a role of medial prefrontal areas in the planning and monitoring of affective motor behavior (Morecraft, Stilwell-Morecraft, & Rossing, 2004), which might operate during both ESUP and NAT but not when emotion experience was diminished by REAP (as indicated by subjective ratings).…”

Section: Prefrontal Cortical Regions As a Putative Source Of Emotion supporting

confidence: 86%

Effects of emotion regulation strategy on brain responses to the valence and social content of visual scenes

2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tEmotion Regulation (ER) includes different mechanisms aiming at volitionally modulating emotional responses, including cognitive re-evaluation (re-appraisal; REAP) or inhibition of emotion expression and behavior (expressive suppression; ESUP). However, despite the importance of these ER strategies, previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have not sufficiently disentangled the specific neural impact of REAP versus ESUP on brain responses to different kinds of emotion-eliciting events. Moreover, although different effects have been reported for stimulus valence (positive vs. negative), no study has systematically investigated how ER may change emotional processing as a function of particular stimulus content variables (i.e., social vs. nonsocial). Our fMRI study directly compared brain activation to visual scenes during the use of different ER strategies, relative to a "natural" viewing condition, but also examined the effects of ER as a function of the social versus nonsocial content of scenes, in addition to their negative versus positive valence (by manipulating these factors orthogonally in a 2 × 2 factorial design). Our data revealed that several prefrontal cortical areas were differentially recruited during either REAP or ESUP, independent of the valence and content of images. In addition, selective modulations by either REAP or ESUP were found depending on the negative valence of scenes (medial fusiform gyrus, anterior insula, dmPFC), and on their nonsocial (middle insula) or social (bilateral amygdala, mPFC, posterior cingulate) significance. Furthermore, we observed a significant lateralization in the amygdala for the effect of the two different ER strategies, with a predominant modulation by REAP on the left side but by ESUP on the right side. Taken together, these results do not only highlight the distributed nature of neural changes induced by ER, but also reveal the specific impact of different strategies (REAP or ESUP), and the specific sites implicated by different dimensions of emotional information (social or negative).

show abstract

Section: Prefrontal Cortical Regions As a Putative Source Of Emotion supporting

confidence: 86%

Effects of emotion regulation strategy on brain responses to the valence and social content of visual scenes

2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such facial response is spontaneous (i.e., without external prompting or a goal to mimic) (Dimberg and Lundquist, 1988), unconscious (i.e., it occurs even when faces are presented subliminally), and rapid (i.e., it emerges within one second after face presentation) (Dimberg et al, 2000). Spontaneous mimicry thus differs from voluntary facial expressions, which are effortful and slow (Dimberg et al, 2002), are affected by contextual demands (Ekman, 1992), and involve different neurofunctional mechanisms (Ekman, 1992;Tassinary and Cacioppo, 2000;Morecraft et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impaired Conscious Recognition of Negative Facial Expressions in Patients with Locked-in Syndrome

Pistoia¹,

Conson²,

Trojano³

et al. 2010

Journal of Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The involvement of facial mimicry in different aspects of human emotional processing is widely debated. However, little is known about relationships between voluntary activation of facial musculature and conscious recognition of facial expressions. To address this issue, we assessed severely motor-disabled patients with complete paralysis of voluntary facial movements due to lesions of the ventral pons [locked-in syndrome (LIS)]. Patients were required to recognize others' facial expressions and to rate their own emotional responses to presentation of affective scenes. LIS patients were selectively impaired in recognition of negative facial expressions, thus demonstrating that the voluntary activation of mimicry represents a high-level simulation mechanism crucially involved in explicit attribution of emotions.

show abstract

“…1b). Studies in nonhuman primates suggest that these effects may be due to the fact that voluntary movements of the lower facial muscles rely-besides on the primary motor cortex-partly also on medial motor structures like the caudal cingulate motor cortex (see [29]). These medial motor structures may be less involved in the performance of voluntary finger movements.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motor Commands of Facial Expressions: The Bereitschaftspotential of Posed Smiles

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Electroencephalographic (EEG) premotor potentials with negative polarity like the Bereitschaftspotential (BP) are known to precede self-paced voluntary movements of the limbs and other body parts. This is however the first report of such premotor potentials before posed smiles. Scalp EEG was recorded in 16 healthy participants performing self-paced unilateral and bilateral smiles and unilateral finger movements. Amplitudes over six central electrodes and voltage distributions over the entire scalp were compared across conditions at time of EMG-onset, thus focusing on the late BP. Results show the presence of a premotor potential before posed smiles with a later onset, symmetrical bilateral distribution, and smaller amplitude at time of movement-onset, compared to finger movements. Future studies should investigate the BP before various types of emotional and non-emotional facial expressions.

show abstract

The Motor Cortex and Facial Expression:

Cited by 165 publications

References 104 publications

Effects of emotion regulation strategy on brain responses to the valence and social content of visual scenes

Effects of emotion regulation strategy on brain responses to the valence and social content of visual scenes

Impaired Conscious Recognition of Negative Facial Expressions in Patients with Locked-in Syndrome

Motor Commands of Facial Expressions: The Bereitschaftspotential of Posed Smiles

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About