Changes in male brain responses to emotional faces from adolescence to middle age.
Facial emotion perception is fundamental to human social behaviour, and changes with age. Nevertheless, age-related differences in the relative activation of components of emotion processing networks are poorly understood. Thus we measured brain activity with event-related fMRI in 40 right handed healthy male controls, age range 8-50 years, during implicit processing of fearful, disgusted, and a control condition of neutral facial expressions. There was a significant negative correlation between increasing age and neural response to fearful and disgusted expressions in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (BA 10), and middle frontal gyri (BA 6). Hence, in healthy subjects, the functional anatomy of facial emotion processing is not 'hard-wired', but undergoes progressive change into adulthood. Possible explanations for the age-related changes in dorsomedial and middle frontal cortical activity may include a reduction in the attentional demands of appraising facial expressions as perceptual skill increases, or changes in processing the self-relevance of facial expressions during social and cognitive development.
Deeley
Quinton
Q
Section of Brain Maturation, King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London, UK. Q.Deeley@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Daly
Eileen M
EM
Azuma
Rayna
R
Surguladze
Simon
S
Giampietro
Vincent
V
Brammer
Michael J
MJ
Hallahan
Brian
B
Dunbar
Robin I M
RI
Phillips
Mary L
ML
Murphy
Declan G M
DG
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008032:Limbic System / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012938:Social Perception; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology