title: Neural activity associated with enhanced facial attractiveness by cosmetics use.
abstract: Previous psychological studies have shown that make-up enhances facial attractiveness. Although neuroimaging evidence indicates that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) shows greater activity for faces of attractive people than for those of unattractive people, there is no direct evidence that the OFC also shows greater activity for the face of an individual wearing make-up than for the same face without make-up. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated neural activity while subjects viewed 144 photographs of the same faces with and without make-up (48 with make-up, 48 without make-up, and 48 scrambled photographs) and assigned these faces an attractiveness rating. The behavioral data showed that the faces with make-up were rated as more attractive than those without make-up. The imaging data revealed that the left OFC and the right hippocampus showed greater activity for faces with make-up than for those without make-up. Furthermore, the activities of the right anterior cingulate cortex, left hippocampus, and left OFC increased with increasing facial attractiveness resulting from cosmetics use. These results provide direct evidence of the neural underpinnings of cosmetically enhanced facial attractiveness.
authors.affiliation: Division of Systems Neuroscience, Tohoku University Graduate School of Life Sciences, Sendai, Japan; The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Aya
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ueno
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan. Electronic address: ayahito.ito@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Ayahito
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Iori
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kawasaki
authors.affiliation: Kansei Fukushi Research Institute, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Yousuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kawachi
authors.affiliation: Division of Health Sciences, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.affiliation: Division of Health Sciences, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Murakami
authors.affiliation: Department of Functioning and Disability, Faculty of Health Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
authors.forename: Shinya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sakai
authors.affiliation: Division of Systems Neuroscience, Tohoku University Graduate School of Life Sciences, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Iijima
authors.affiliation: Kansei Fukushi Research Institute, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshihiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Matsue
authors.affiliation: Kansei Fukushi Research Institute, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshikatsu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fujii
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001504:Beauty; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003358:Cosmetics; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D003358:Cosmetics
keywords: Cosmetics; Facial attractiveness; Make-up; Orbitofrontal cortex; fMRI