title: Gender specific processing of eye contact within the human medial temporal lobe.
abstract: Eye contact is a powerful social stimulus for human and non-human primates. However, it is unclear whether brain mechanisms that interpret eye contact are sensitive to gender. Here we show that human brain responses to eye contact are indeed gender specific. Recording event-related potentials directly from the medial temporal lobes, we found that eye contact elicited specific responses in men only when they saw female faces. Conversely, women responded specifically to eye contact only when they saw pictures of men. Thus, the human medial temporal lobes subserve specifically the processing of eye contact with persons of the opposite gender.
authors.affiliation: Swiss Epilepsy Center, Zurich, Switzerland. thomas.grunwald@swissepi.ch
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Grunwald
authors.forename: Manila
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vannucci
authors.forename: Nico
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pezer
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kurthen
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schramm
authors.forename: Christian E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Elger
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012737:Sex Factors; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*