1. + [M.V. Peelen,A.P. Atkinson and P. Vuilleumier The Journal
of Neuroscience, July 28, 2010 30(30):1012710134 ] SUPRAMODAL
REPRESENTATIONS OF PERCEIVED EMOTIONS IN THE HUMAN BRAINMONDAY 27
FEBRUARY 2012 MSCs: Angelo Bruschi, MD
2. + INTRODUCTION (I) Successful social interaction requires a
precise understanding of the feelings, thoughts, intentions and
desires of other people. Humans have the exceptional ability to
infer complex mental states from subtle sensory cues. (e.g. Face,
Body, Voice). (de Gelder et al., 2006 ) These signals lead to the
recognition of an emotional state and activate similar
emotion-specific responses in the observer. (Magne et al.,
2007)
3. + MAIN QUESTION (II) ARE THERE ANY BRAIN REGIONS THAT ENCODE
EMOTIONS INDIPENDENTLY OF THE MODALITY THROUGH WICH THEY ARE
PERCEIVED?
4. + STUDY DESIGN (III) VOICE STIMULI HEALTY fMRI BODY
VOLUNTEERS RESPONSES EMOTIONS FACIAL EMOTIONS
5. + PARTICIPANTS(IV) 18 Adult Healthy Volunteers (10 women,
mean age 26, range 20-32) HAPPINESS ANGER All right handed, normal
vision, no history SADNESS of psychiatric or neurological disease
FEAR DISGUST 5 different emotions chosen
6. + EMOTIONAL STIMULI: FACES (V) Movies of emotional faces
expression taken from Banse and Scherer (1996). Non facial body
parts were cropped. 5 different emotions chosen (Anger, Disgust,
Happiness, Fear, Sadness). Four actors (2 male + 2 female)
expressed each emotion.
7. + EMOTIONAL STIMULI: BODY (VI) Movies of emotional body
expression taken from Atkinson (2004). Actors wore uniform
dark-grey, tight-fitting clothes and headwear so that all body
parts (including face) were covered. 5 different emotions chosen
(Anger, Disgust, Happiness, Fear, Sadness). Four actors (2 male + 2
female) expressed each emotion.
8. + EMOTIONAL STIMULI: VOICE (VII) Emotional voice stimuli
taken from Montreal Affective Voice set, Belin(2008). Consisted of
short (~1s), non linguistic interjections (Ahh) expressing
different emotions. 5 different emotions chosen (Anger, Disgust,
Happiness, Fear, Sadness) Four actors (2 male + 2 female) expressed
each emotion
9. + DESIGN AND PROCEDURE (VIII) Participants performed 6 fMRI
runs, each of 36 trials as shown in figure. 3 blocks of 12 trials,
differing in type of stimuli, with 2 different clips for each of
the 5 emotions. Trials presented in random order, to prevent any
prediction bias. After each presentation, participants rated each
stimulus on a 3 point scale. (Enhancement of involved brain
regions)
10. + DATA ACQUISITION: fMRI (IX) fMRI data were analysed using
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis (MVPA): a technique sensitive to
fine-grained neural representations. (Haynes & Rees, 2005)
Moreover, using a spherical searchlight approach they tested for
regions in the brain where local activity patterns contained
information about emotion categories (fear, anger, etc.)
independent of stimulus modality (body, voice, face). (Kriegeskorte
et al., 2006)
11. + RESULTS: BEHAVIOURAL (X) The average rating of the
perceived emotions is 2,24 (as show in figure) Differences between
perceived intensities of emotions depended on modality (p<
0.001). (Anger > Voice Disgust > Body) THEY EXCLUDED THE
POSSIBILITY THAT DIFFERENCES IN PERCEIVED INTENSITY COULD PROVIDE
AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION FOR SUPRAMODAL EMOTION-SPECIFIC fMRI
RESPONSES. (NONE OF THE CORRELATIONS POSITIVE)
12. + RESULTS: fMRI (XI) TWO CLUSTERS SHOWED SUPRAMODAL EMOTION
INFORMATION: rmPFC and left STS Results of a whole-brain
searchlight analysis showed clusters with significant
emotion-specific activity patterns across modality. Similarity of
activity patterns was expressed as a correlation value, with higher
correlations indicating higher similarity. rmPFC (p