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Considering Hemispheric Specialization in Emotional Face Processing: An Eye Tracking Study in Left- and Right-Lateralised Semantic Dementia

Face processing relies on a network of occipito-temporal and frontal brain regions. Temporal regions are heavily involved in looking at and processing emotional faces; however, the contribution of each hemisphere to this process remains under debate. Semantic dementia (SD) is a rare neurodegenerativ...

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Autores principales: Hutchings, Rosalind, Palermo, Romina, Hazelton, Jessica L., Piguet, Olivier, Kumfor, Fiona
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8472320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34573215
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11091195
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author Hutchings, Rosalind
Palermo, Romina
Hazelton, Jessica L.
Piguet, Olivier
Kumfor, Fiona
author_facet Hutchings, Rosalind
Palermo, Romina
Hazelton, Jessica L.
Piguet, Olivier
Kumfor, Fiona
author_sort Hutchings, Rosalind
collection PubMed
description Face processing relies on a network of occipito-temporal and frontal brain regions. Temporal regions are heavily involved in looking at and processing emotional faces; however, the contribution of each hemisphere to this process remains under debate. Semantic dementia (SD) is a rare neurodegenerative brain condition characterized by anterior temporal lobe atrophy, which is either predominantly left- (left-SD) or right-lateralised (right-SD). This syndrome therefore provides a unique lesion model to understand the role of laterality in emotional face processing. Here, we investigated facial scanning patterns in 10 left-SD and 6 right-SD patients, compared to 22 healthy controls. Eye tracking was recorded via a remote EyeLink 1000 system, while participants passively viewed fearful, happy, and neutral faces over 72 trials. Analyses revealed that right-SD patients had more fixations to the eyes than controls in the Fear (p = 0.04) condition only. Right-SD patients also showed more fixations to the eyes than left-SD patients in all conditions: Fear (p = 0.01), Happy (p = 0.008), and Neutral (p = 0.04). In contrast, no differences between controls and left-SD patients were observed for any emotion. No group differences were observed for fixations to the mouth, or the whole face. This study is the first to examine patterns of facial scanning in left- versus right- SD, demonstrating more of a focus on the eyes in right-SD. Neuroimaging analyses showed that degradation of the right superior temporal sulcus was associated with increased fixations to the eyes. Together these results suggest that right lateralised brain regions of the face processing network are involved in the ability to efficiently utilise changeable cues from the face.
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spelling pubmed-84723202021-09-28 Considering Hemispheric Specialization in Emotional Face Processing: An Eye Tracking Study in Left- and Right-Lateralised Semantic Dementia Hutchings, Rosalind Palermo, Romina Hazelton, Jessica L. Piguet, Olivier Kumfor, Fiona Brain Sci Article Face processing relies on a network of occipito-temporal and frontal brain regions. Temporal regions are heavily involved in looking at and processing emotional faces; however, the contribution of each hemisphere to this process remains under debate. Semantic dementia (SD) is a rare neurodegenerative brain condition characterized by anterior temporal lobe atrophy, which is either predominantly left- (left-SD) or right-lateralised (right-SD). This syndrome therefore provides a unique lesion model to understand the role of laterality in emotional face processing. Here, we investigated facial scanning patterns in 10 left-SD and 6 right-SD patients, compared to 22 healthy controls. Eye tracking was recorded via a remote EyeLink 1000 system, while participants passively viewed fearful, happy, and neutral faces over 72 trials. Analyses revealed that right-SD patients had more fixations to the eyes than controls in the Fear (p = 0.04) condition only. Right-SD patients also showed more fixations to the eyes than left-SD patients in all conditions: Fear (p = 0.01), Happy (p = 0.008), and Neutral (p = 0.04). In contrast, no differences between controls and left-SD patients were observed for any emotion. No group differences were observed for fixations to the mouth, or the whole face. This study is the first to examine patterns of facial scanning in left- versus right- SD, demonstrating more of a focus on the eyes in right-SD. Neuroimaging analyses showed that degradation of the right superior temporal sulcus was associated with increased fixations to the eyes. Together these results suggest that right lateralised brain regions of the face processing network are involved in the ability to efficiently utilise changeable cues from the face. MDPI 2021-09-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8472320/ /pubmed/34573215 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11091195 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hutchings, Rosalind
Palermo, Romina
Hazelton, Jessica L.
Piguet, Olivier
Kumfor, Fiona
Considering Hemispheric Specialization in Emotional Face Processing: An Eye Tracking Study in Left- and Right-Lateralised Semantic Dementia
title Considering Hemispheric Specialization in Emotional Face Processing: An Eye Tracking Study in Left- and Right-Lateralised Semantic Dementia
title_full Considering Hemispheric Specialization in Emotional Face Processing: An Eye Tracking Study in Left- and Right-Lateralised Semantic Dementia
title_fullStr Considering Hemispheric Specialization in Emotional Face Processing: An Eye Tracking Study in Left- and Right-Lateralised Semantic Dementia
title_full_unstemmed Considering Hemispheric Specialization in Emotional Face Processing: An Eye Tracking Study in Left- and Right-Lateralised Semantic Dementia
title_short Considering Hemispheric Specialization in Emotional Face Processing: An Eye Tracking Study in Left- and Right-Lateralised Semantic Dementia
title_sort considering hemispheric specialization in emotional face processing: an eye tracking study in left- and right-lateralised semantic dementia
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8472320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34573215
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11091195
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