Relationship between DMN and frontoparietal attentional network by emotional gaze cueing task
Poster No:
613
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Federica Sassi1, Azalea Reyes-Aguilar2, Sarael Alcauter3, Clemens Bauer4, Erick Pasaye3, Fernando Barrios3
Institutions:
1Human Neuroscience Lab., Universidad Loyola Andalucia, Sevilla, Spain, 2Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Psicología, Mexico City, Mexico, 3Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Neurobiología, Querétaro, Mexico, 4Northeastern University, Boston, MA
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Azalea Reyes-Aguilar
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Psicología
Mexico City, Mexico
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Psicología
Mexico City, Mexico
Sarael Alcauter, Ph.D.
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Neurobiología
Querétaro, Mexico
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Neurobiología
Querétaro, Mexico
Fernando Barrios, Ph.D.
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Neurobiología
Querétaro, Mexico
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Neurobiología
Querétaro, Mexico
Introduction:
Eye gaze is an important stimulus in everyday life because it can signal the presence of threats or other relevant stimuli outside our current focus of attention (Galfano et al., 2011). Several studies have demonstrated that gaze cues can trigger an automatic shift of the focus of the viewer's visual attention. fMRI studies have identified both dorsal and ventral attentional networks as brain circuits involved in the processing of eye gaze movement (Corbetta et al. 2002, Ethofef et al. 2011). However, very few studies have examined the relationship between emotional face processing, frontoparietal attentional network, and default mode network (DMN). DMN has extensive connectivity with regions involved in emotion processing (Sheline et al., 2009) and social function (Kennedy & Adolphs, 2012). This study aims to investigate brain areas involved in the relationship between DMN and frontoparietal attentional network, elicited by an emotional gaze cueing task and the role of emotion in frontoparietal attentional networks.
Methods:
A total of 31 right-handed volunteers (17 females and 14 males) participated in this research. The emotional gaze cueing task consisted of the presentation of human face pictures, which showed happy, neutral, or sad emotion with the eyes directed either to the left or the right (for event trial) or neutral emotion with direct eyes (for baseline) as the cue (see Galfano et al. 2011). Participants were instructed to indicate, as soon as possible, the side on which a subsequent target appeared. Functional MRI data were collected on a 3T scanner (TR=2s, TE=40ms, slice thickness=4mm, volumes=260). Image and statistical analyses were conducted using FSL 6.
Results:
Reaction times (RTs) and accuracy (AC) revealed a significant main effect of congruency reflecting a gaze-cuing effect, as participants were significantly faster F(1, 30) = 57.443, p = .000 and accurate F(1, 30) = 6.8598, p = .0137 when targets were preceded by a congruent than by an incongruent gaze. No significant effect of emotion was found. Imaging results revealed greater activation for the incongruent trials compared to the congruent ones in the right frontal orbital cortex, right supramarginal gyrus, right angular gyrus, and anterior cingulate cortex. Additionally, when comparing emotional faces with neutral ones, greater activation was observed for emotional stimuli in both congruent and incongruent trials. Furthermore, comparing emotional faces, happy vs. sad, showed increased activation only for the contrast happy > sad in both congruent and incongruent trials. In this contrast, happy > sad, for the congruent trials, higher activation in the posterior cingulate cortex was found, while for the incongruent trials, only lingual cortex activation was found (Fig.2). However, when an emotional sad face was presented; data revealed a greater activation in the anterior cingulate cortex in incongruent trials, respect to congruent trials (sad incongruent > sad congruent) (Fig.2).
Conclusions:
n congruent trials happy faces engaged a critical node of the DMN, the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), but not in incongruent trials. In incongruent trials, lingual gyrus, a structure involved in visual processes such as eye movements (Zhou and Shu, 2017), and early stages of face processing (Palejwala et al., 2021), was more activated. Our results suggest that recognition of positive, happy expressions may be easier and requires lower demands on perceptual and cognitive resources compared to recognition of negative sad expressions. However, when the negative, expression was presented in incongruent trials, anterior cingulate cortex showed greater activity, indicating a fundamental role for this structure in focusing attention on behaviourally relevant stimuli, especially when the task requires higher demands on perceptual and cognitive resources or distractor stimuli.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotional Perception 1
Emotion and Motivation Other
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI) 2
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Attention: Visual
Perception and Attention Other
Keywords:
Cognition
Cortex
Emotions
fMRI CONTRAST MECHANISMS
Perception
Social Interactions
Vision
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Was this research conducted in the United States?
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel? NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Ethofer T, Gschwind M, Vuilleumier P. (2011). Processing social aspects of human gaze: a combined fMRI-DTI study. Neuroimage, Mar 1;55(1):411-9
Galfano G, Sarlo M, Sassi F, Munafò M, Fuentes LJ, Umiltà C. (2011). Reorienting of spatial attention in gaze cuing is reflected in N2pc. Social Neuroscience, 6(3):257-69.
Kennedy, D. P., & Adolphs, R. (2012). The social brain in psychiatric and neurological disorders. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(11), 559–572.
Palejwala, A.H., Dadario, N.B., Young, I.M., O’Connor, K., Briggs, R.G., Conner, A.K., O’Donoghue, D.L., Sughrue, M.E. (2021). Anatomy and White Matter Connections of the Lingual Gyrus and Cuneus. World Neurosurgery, doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2021.04.050 .
Sheline, Y. I., Barch, D. M., Price, J. L., Rundle, M. M., Vaishnavi, S. N., Snyder, A. Z., … Raichle, M. E. (2009). The default mode network and self-referential processes in depression. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(6), 1942–1947.