Supramodal representations of perceived emotions in the human brain

Article Article scientifique Article Supramodal representations of perceived emotions in the human brain eng 2010 author Peelen Marius 640232 author Atkinson Anthony P. author Vuilleumier Patrik 0000-0002-8198-9214 134853 10127-10134 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2161-10.2010 20668196 0270-6474 http://www.jneurosci.org/content/30/30/10127.full.pdf Basic emotional states (such as anger, fear, and joy) can be similarly conveyed by the face, the body, and the voice. Are there human brain regions that represent these emotional mental states regardless of the sensory cues from which they are perceived? To address this question, in the present study participants evaluated the intensity of emotions perceived from face movements, body movements, or vocal intonations, while their brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Using multivoxel pattern analysis, we compared the similarity of response patterns across modalities to test for brain regions in which emotion-specific patterns in one modality (e.g., faces) could predict emotion-specific patterns in another modality (e.g., bodies). A whole-brain searchlight analysis revealed modality-independent but emotion category-specific activity patterns in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and left superior temporal sulcus (STS). Multivoxel patterns in these regions contained information about the category of the perceived emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness) across all modality comparisons (face-body, face-voice, body-voice), and independently of the perceived intensity of the emotions. No systematic emotion-related differences were observed in the overall amplitude of activation in MPFC or STS. These results reveal supramodal representations of emotions in high-level brain areas previously implicated in affective processing, mental state attribution, and theory-of-mind. We suggest that MPFC and STS represent perceived emotions at an abstract, modality-independent level, and thus play a key role in the understanding and categorization of others' emotional mental states. Adult Analysis of Variance Brain/blood supply/*physiology *Brain Mapping Emotions/*physiology Face Facial Expression Female Humans Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods Male *Models, Neurological Oxygen/blood Pattern Recognition, Visual/physiology Photic Stimulation/methods Reaction Time/physiology Young Adult Dewey 616.8 Dewey 128.37 15 Centre interfacultaire en sciences affectives 0D8 53 Département de neurosciences fondamentales 21A false 1241 Affective sciences 428 Mécanismes cérébraux du comportement et des fonctions cognitives 701 The Journal of neuroscience 30 30 c1e27bea-e75a-4bb6-bc7b-db26ad82ab68 Article Restricted file1.pdf 676644 application/pdf restrictedAccess Centres et instituts / Centre interfacultaire en sciences affectives Faculté de médecine / Section de médecine fondamentale / Département de neurosciences fondamentales

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Supramodal representations of perceived emotions in the human brain	The Journal of neuroscience			2010	675	0

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Peelen, Marius