title: The effect of constraining eye-contact during dynamic emotional face perception-an fMRI study.
abstract: Eye-contact modifies how we perceive emotions and modulates activity in the social brain network. Here, using fMRI, we demonstrate that adding a fixation cross in the eye region of dynamic facial emotional stimuli significantly increases activation in the social brain of healthy, neurotypical participants when compared with activation for the exact same stimuli observed in a free-viewing mode. In addition, using PPI analysis, we show that the degree of amygdala connectivity with the rest of the brain is enhanced for the constrained view for all emotions tested except for fear, and that anxiety and alexithymia modulate the strength of amygdala connectivity for each emotion differently. Finally, we show that autistic traits have opposite effects on amygdala connectivity for fearful and angry emotional expressions, suggesting that these emotions should be treated separately in studies investigating facial emotion processing.
authors.affiliation: MGH/HMS/HST A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.|Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Center, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 41119, Sweden.
authors.forename: Nouchine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hadjikhani
authors.affiliation: MGH/HMS/HST A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.
authors.forename: Nicole R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Zurcher
authors.affiliation: MGH/HMS/HST A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.|ARC, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB2 8AH, UK.
authors.forename: Amandine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lassalle
authors.affiliation: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne 1010, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Loyse
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hippolyte
authors.affiliation: MGH/HMS/HST A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.
authors.forename: Noreen
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ward
authors.affiliation: Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Center, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 41119, Sweden.|Section for Speech and Language Pathology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 455 405 30, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jakob Åsberg
authors.initials: JÅ
authors.lastname: Johnels
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology; D001007:Anxiety / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: amygdala connectivity; dynamic face perception; emotion perception; eye-contact effect; social brain