Sara C. Verosky

Mentalizing about emotion and its relationship to empathy

Mentalizing involves the ability to predict someone elses behavior based on their belief state. More advanced mentalizing skills involve integrating knowledge about beliefs with knowledge about the emotional impact of those beliefs. Recent research indicates that advanced mentalizing skills may be related to the capacity to empathize with others. However, it is not clear what aspect of mentalizing is most related to empathy. In this study, we used a novel, advanced mentalizing task to identify neural mechanisms involved in predicting a future emotional response based on a belief state. Subjects viewed social scenes in which one character had a False Belief and one character had a True Belief. In the primary condition, subjects were asked to predict what emotion the False Belief Character would feel if they had a full understanding about the situation. We found that neural regions related to both mentalizing and emotion were involved when predicting a future emotional response, including the superior temporal sulcus, medial prefrontal cortex, temporal poles, somatosensory related cortices (SRC), inferior frontal gyrus and thalamus. In addition, greater neural activity in primarily emotion-related regions, including right SRC and bilateral thalamus, when predicting emotional response was significantly correlated with more self-reported empathy. The findings suggest that predicting emotional response involves generating and using internal affective representations and that greater use of these affective representations when trying to understand the emotional experience of others is related to more empathy.

The Influence of Personality on Neural Mechanisms of Observational Fear and Reward Learning

Fear and reward learning can occur through direct experience or observation. Both channels can enhance survival or create maladaptive behavior. We used fMRI to isolate neural mechanisms of observational fear and reward learning and investigate whether neural response varied according to individual differences in neuroticism and extraversion. Participants learned object-emotion associations by observing a woman respond with fearful (or neutral) and happy (or neutral) facial expressions to novel objects. The amygdala-hippocampal complex was active when learning the object-fear association, and the hippocampus was active when learning the object-happy association. After learning, objects were presented alone; amygdala activity was greater for the fear (vs. neutral) and happy (vs. neutral) associated object. Importantly, greater amygdala-hippocampal activity during fear (vs. neutral) learning predicted better recognition of learned objects on a subsequent memory test. Furthermore, personality modulated neural mechanisms of learning. Neuroticism positively correlated with neural activity in the amygdala and hippocampus during fear (vs. neutral) learning. Low extraversion/high introversion was related to faster behavioral predictions of the fearful and neutral expressions during fear learning. In addition, low extraversion/high introversion was related to greater amygdala activity during happy (vs. neutral) learning, happy (vs. neutral) object recognition, and faster reaction times for predicting happy and neutral expressions during reward learning. These findings suggest that neuroticism is associated with an increased sensitivity in the neural mechanism for fear learning which leads to enhanced encoding of fear associations, and that low extraversion/high introversion is related to enhanced conditionability for both fear and reward learning.

Neural activity during emotion recognition after combined cognitive plus social cognitive training in schizophrenia

Cognitive remediation training has been shown to improve both cognitive and social cognitive deficits in people with schizophrenia, but the mechanisms that support this behavioral improvement are largely unknown. One hypothesis is that intensive behavioral training in cognition and/or social cognition restores the underlying neural mechanisms that support targeted skills. However, there is little research on the neural effects of cognitive remediation training. This study investigated whether a 50 h (10-week) remediation intervention which included both cognitive and social cognitive training would influence neural function in regions that support social cognition. Twenty-two stable, outpatient schizophrenia participants were randomized to a treatment condition consisting of auditory-based cognitive training (AT) [Brain Fitness Program/auditory module ~60 min/day] plus social cognition training (SCT) which was focused on emotion recognition [~5-15 min per day] or a placebo condition of non-specific computer games (CG) for an equal amount of time. Pre and post intervention assessments included an fMRI task of positive and negative facial emotion recognition, and standard behavioral assessments of cognition, emotion processing, and functional outcome. There were no significant intervention-related improvements in general cognition or functional outcome. fMRI results showed the predicted group-by-time interaction. Specifically, in comparison to CG, AT+SCT participants had a greater pre-to-post intervention increase in postcentral gyrus activity during emotion recognition of both positive and negative emotions. Furthermore, among all participants, the increase in postcentral gyrus activity predicted behavioral improvement on a standardized test of emotion processing (MSCEIT: Perceiving Emotions). Results indicate that combined cognition and social cognition training impacts neural mechanisms that support social cognition skills.

Generalization of Affective Learning About Faces to Perceptually Similar Faces

Different individuals have different (and different-looking) significant others, friends, and foes. The objective of this study was to investigate whether these social face environments can shape individual face preferences. First, participants learned to associate faces with positive, neutral, or negative behaviors. Then, they evaluated morphs combining novel faces with the learned faces. The morphs (65% and 80% novel faces) were within the categorical boundary of the novel faces: They were perceived as those faces in a preliminary study. Moreover, a second preliminary study showed that following the learning, the morphs’ categorization as similar to the learned faces was indistinguishable from the categorization of actual novel faces. Nevertheless, in the main experiment, participants evaluated morphs of “positive” faces more positively than morphs of “negative” faces. This learning generalization effect increased as a function of the similarity of the novel faces to the learned faces. The findings suggest that general learning mechanisms based on similarity can account for idiosyncratic face preferences.

The influence of combined cognitive plus social-cognitive training on amygdala response during face emotion recognition in schizophrenia

Both cognitive and social-cognitive deficits impact functional outcome in schizophrenia. Cognitive remediation studies indicate that targeted cognitive and/or social-cognitive training improves behavioral performance on trained skills. However, the neural effects of training in schizophrenia and their relation to behavioral gains are largely unknown. This study tested whether a 50-h intervention which included both cognitive and social-cognitive training would influence neural mechanisms that support social ccognition. Schizophrenia participants completed a computer-based intervention of either auditory-based cognitive training (AT) plus social-cognition training (SCT) (N=11) or non-specific computer games (CG) (N=11). Assessments included a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task of facial emotion recognition, and behavioral measures of cognition, social cognition, and functional outcome. The fMRI results showed the predicted group-by-time interaction. Results were strongest for emotion recognition of happy, surprise and fear: relative to CG participants, AT+SCT participants showed a neural activity increase in bilateral amygdala, right putamen and right medial prefrontal cortex. Across all participants, pre-to-post intervention neural activity increase in these regions predicted behavioral improvement on an independent emotion perception measure (MSCEIT: Perceiving Emotions). Among AT+SCT participants alone, neural activity increase in right amygdala predicted behavioral improvement in emotion perception. The findings indicate that combined cognition and social-cognition training improves neural systems that support social-cognition skills.

Robust selectivity for faces in the human amygdala in the absence of expressions

There is a well-established posterior network of cortical regions that plays a central role in face processing and that has been investigated extensively. In contrast, although responsive to faces, the amygdala is not considered a core face-selective region, and its face selectivity has never been a topic of systematic research in human neuroimaging studies. Here, we conducted a large-scale group analysis of fMRI data from 215 participants. We replicated the posterior network observed in prior studies but found equally robust and reliable responses to faces in the amygdala. These responses were detectable in most individual participants, but they were also highly sensitive to the initial statistical threshold and habituated more rapidly than the responses in posterior face-selective regions. A multivariate analysis showed that the pattern of responses to faces across voxels in the amygdala had high reliability over time. Finally, functional connectivity analyses showed stronger coupling between the amygdala and posterior face-selective regions during the perception of faces than during the perception of control visual categories. These findings suggest that the amygdala should be considered a core face-selective region.

Differential neural responses to faces physically similar to the self as a function of their valence

Behavioral studies show that people self-enhance across a number of domains, including self-face recognition. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether response to physical similarity to the self would differ depending on whether the self-face was morphed with a positive (trustworthy) or negative (untrustworthy) novel face. Participants were presented with morphs of their faces (20%, 40%, 50%, 60%, and 80% self) and asked to decide whether the morph looked like them or the other face. Participants were more likely to identify the trustworthy than the untrustworthy morphs as looking like the self. Moreover, there were large differences in brain activation to trustworthy and untrustworthy morphs. As similarity of the untrustworthy morphs to the self decreased, the response in a number of regions, including bilateral posterior superior temporal sulcus/inferior parietal lobule, right inferior frontal gyrus, and bilateral middle/inferior temporal gyrus, increased. In contrast, there was little evidence for changes in activation as a function of the similarity to trustworthy faces. That is, these regions seemed to differentiate between the self and untrustworthy faces to a much greater extent than between the self and trustworthy faces, despite the fact that the task did not demand evaluation of the faces. The findings suggest that comparing the self to others who are viewed as positive versus negative triggers different psychological processes.

Representations of facial identity in the left hemisphere require right hemisphere processing

A quintessential example of hemispheric specialization in the human brain is that the right hemisphere is specialized for face perception. However, because the visual system is organized contralaterally, what happens when faces appear in the right visual field and are projected to the nonspecialized left hemisphere? We used divided field presentation and fMRI adaptation to test the hypothesis that the left hemisphere can recognize faces, but only with support from the right hemisphere. Consistent with this hypothesis, facial identity adaptation was observed in the left fusiform face area when a face had previously been processed by the right hemisphere, but not when it had only been processed by the left hemisphere. These results imply that facial identity information is transferred from the right hemisphere to the left hemisphere, and that the left hemisphere can represent facial identity but is less efficient at extracting this information by itself.

Representations of individuals in ventral temporal cortex defined by faces and biographies

The fusiform gyrus responds more strongly to faces than to other categories of objects. This response could reflect either categorical detection of faces or recognition of particular facial identities. Recent fMRI studies have attempted to address the question of what information is encoded in these regions, but have reported mixed results. We tested whether the creation of richer identity representations via training on visual and social information, and the use of an adaptation design, would reveal more robust representations of these identities in ventral temporal cortex. Examining the patterns of activation across voxels in bilateral fusiform gyri, we identified unique patterns for particular identities. Attaching distinctive biographical information to identities did not increase the strength of these representations, but did produce a grouping effect: faces associated with the same amount of biographical information were represented more similarly to each other. These results are consistent with the possibility that identity exemplars are represented in posterior visual areas best known for their role in representing categorical information, and suggest that these areas may be sensitive to some forms of non-visual information, including from the social domain.