Sex Differences in Neural Activation to Facial Expressions Denoting Contempt and Disgust 英文参考文献.docVIP

SexDifferencesinNeuralActivationtoFacialExpressions DenotingContemptandDisgust Andre′ Aleman1,2*,MarteSwart1 1BCN Neuroimaging Center, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands, 2Department of Experimental Psychology, UniversityofUtrecht,Utrecht,theNetherlands Abstract Thefacialexpressionofcontempthasbeenregardedtocommunicatefeelingsofmoralsuperiority.Contemptisanemotion thatiscloselyrelatedtodisgust,butincontrasttodisgust,contemptisinherentlyinterpersonalandhierarchical.Theaimof this study was twofold. First, to investigate the hypothesis of preferential amygdala responses to contempt expressions versus disgust. Second, to investigate whether, at a neural level, men would respond stronger to biological signals of interpersonalsuperiority(e.g.,contempt)thanwomen.Weperformedanexperimentusingfunctionalmagneticresonance imaging(fMRI),inwhichparticipantswatchedfacialexpressionsofcontemptanddisgustinadditiontoneutralexpressions. The faces were presented as distractors in an oddball task in which participants had to react to one target face. Facial expressionsofcontemptanddisgustactivatedanetworkofbrainregions,includingprefrontalareas(superior,middleand medialprefrontalgyrus),anteriorcingulate,insula,amygdala,parietalcortex,fusiformgyrus,occipitalcortex,putamenand thalamus. Contemptuous faces did not elicit stronger amygdala activation than did disgusted expressions. To limit the number of statistical comparisons, we confined our analyses of sex differences to the frontal and temporal lobes. Men displayedstrongerbrainactivationthanwomentofacialexpressionsofcontemptinthemedialfrontalgyrus,inferiorfrontal gyrus,andsuperiortemporalgyrus.Conversely,womenshowedstrongerneuralresponsesthanmentofacialexpressionsof disgust. In addition, the effect of stimulus sex differed for men versus women. Specifically, women showed stronger responses to male contemptuous faces (as compared to female expressions), in the insula and middle fronta