I find you more attractive … after (prefrontal cortex) stimulation.
Facial attractiveness seems to be perceived immediately. Neuroimaging evidence suggests that the appraisal of facial attractiveness is mediated by a network of cortical and subcortical regions, mainly encompassing the reward circuit, but also including prefrontal cortices. The prefrontal cortex is involved in high-level processes, so how does its activity relate to beauty appreciation? To shed light on this, we asked male and female participants to evaluate the attractiveness of faces of the same and other sex prior and after transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). We found that increasing excitability via anodal tDCS in the right but not in the left DLPFC increased perceived attractiveness of the faces, irrespective of the sex of the faces or the sex of the viewers. Identical stimulation over the same site did not affect estimation of other facial characteristics, such as age, thereby suggesting that the effects of anodal tDCS over the right DLPFC might be selective for facial attractiveness, and might not generalize to decisions concerning other facial attributes. Overall, our data suggest that the right DLPFC plays a causal role in explicit judgment of facial attractiveness. The mechanisms mediating such effect are discussed.
Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy; Brain Connectivity Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Pavia, Italy.
Chiara
C
Ferrari
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
Carlotta
C
Lega
Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Torino, Italy; Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, and CoRPS, Center of Research on Psychology in Somatic Diseases, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Marco
M
Tamietto
Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Marcos
M
Nadal
Brain Connectivity Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Pavia, Italy; Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy. Electronic address: zaira.cattaneo@unimib.it.
Zaira
Z
Cattaneo
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012737:Sex Factors; D065908:Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult
Attractiveness; Face processing; Prefrontal cortex; tDCS