scholarly journals Electrophysiological Responses to Emotional Facial Expressions Following a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanie Drapeau ◽  
Nathalie Gosselin ◽  
Isabelle Peretz ◽  
Michelle McKerral

The present study aimed to measure neural information processing underlying emotional recognition from facial expressions in adults having sustained a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) as compared to healthy individuals. We thus measured early (N1, N170) and later (N2) event-related potential (ERP) components during presentation of fearful, neutral, and happy facial expressions in 10 adults with mTBI and 11 control participants. Findings indicated significant differences between groups, irrespective of emotional expression, in the early attentional stage (N1), which was altered in mTBI. The two groups showed similar perceptual integration of facial features (N170), with greater amplitude for fearful facial expressions in the right hemisphere. At a higher-level emotional discrimination stage (N2), both groups demonstrated preferential processing for fear as compared to happiness and neutrality. These findings suggest a reduced early selective attentional processing following mTBI, but no impact on the perceptual and higher-level cognitive processes stages. This study contributes to further improving our comprehension of attentional versus emotional recognition following a mild TBI.

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gian Candrian ◽  
Andreas Müller ◽  
Patrizia Dall’Acqua ◽  
Kyveli Kompatsiari ◽  
Gian-Marco Baschera ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Fengfang Li ◽  
Liyan Lu ◽  
Song’an Shang ◽  
Huiyou Chen ◽  
Peng Wang ◽  
...  

Objective. The influence of cognitive impairment after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) on cerebral vascular perfusion has been widely concerned, yet the resting-state cerebral blood flow (CBF) connectivity alterations based on arterial spin labeling (ASL) in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) remain unclear. This study investigated region CBF and CBF connectivity features in acute mTBI patients, as well as the associations between CBF changes and cognitive impairment. Materials and Methods. Forty-five acute mTBI patients and 42 health controls underwent pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) perfusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The alterations in regional CBF and relationship between the CBF changes and cognitive impairment were detected. The ASL-CBF connectivity of the brain regions with regional CBF significant differences was also compared between two groups. Neuropsychological tests covered seven cognitive domains. Associations between the CBF changes and cognitive impairment were further investigated. Results. Compared with the healthy controls, the acute mTBI patients exhibited increased CBF in the bilateral inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) and decreased CBF in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG), the bilateral superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and the right cerebellum posterior lobe (CPL). In the mTBI patients, significant correlations were identified between the CBF changes and cognitive impairment. Importantly, the acute mTBI patients exhibited CBF disconnections between the right CPL and right fusiform gyrus (FG) as well as bilateral ITG, between the left SFG and left middle occipital gyrus (MOG), and between the right SFG and right FG as well as right parahippocampal gyrus. Conclusion. Our results suggest that acute mTBI patients exhibit both regional CBF abnormalities and CBF connectivity deficits, which may underlie the cognitive impairment of the acute mTBI patients.


Diagnostics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung Ho Jang ◽  
You Sung Seo

A 54-year-old male suffered from direct head trauma resulting from a fall while working. At approximately two months after the accident, he began to feel pain (burning sensation) and swelling of the dorsum of the right hand and wrist. He showed the following clinical features among the clinical signs and symptoms of revised diagnostic criteria for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS): spontaneous pain, mechanical hyperalgesia, vasodilation, skin temperature asymmetries, skin color changes, swelling, motor weakness. No specific lesion was observed on brain MRI taken at ten weeks after onset. Plain X-ray, electromyography, and nerve conduction studies for the right upper extremity detected no abnormality. A three-phase bone scan showed hot uptake in the right wrist in the delayed image. On two-month diffusion tensor tractography, partial tearing of the corticospinal tract (CST) was observed at the subcortical white matter in both hemispheres (much more severe in the left CST). In addition, the fiber number of the right CST was significantly decreased than that of seven normal control subjects. CRPS I of the right hand in this patient appeared to be related to traumatic axonal injury of the left CST following mild traumatic brain injury.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 174480692110378
Author(s):  
Matthew Flowers ◽  
Albert Leung ◽  
Dawn M Schiehser ◽  
Valerie Metzger-Smith ◽  
Lisa Delano-Wood ◽  
...  

Emerging evidence suggests mild traumatic brain injury related headache (MTBI-HA) is a form of neuropathic pain state. Previous supraspinal mechanistic studies indicate patients with MTBI-HA demonstrate a dissociative state with diminished levels of supraspinal prefrontal pain modulatory functions and enhanced supraspinal sensory response to pain in comparison to healthy controls. However, the relationship between supraspinal pain modulatory functional deficit and severity of MTBI-HA is largely unknown. Understanding this relationship may provide enhanced levels of insight about MTBI-HA and facilitate the development of treatments. This study assessed pain related supraspinal resting states among MTBI-HA patients with various headache intensity phenotypes with comparisons to controls via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Resting state fMRI data was analyzed with self-organizing-group-independent-component-analysis in three MTBI-HA intensity groups (mild, moderate, and severe) and one control group (n = 16 per group) within a pre-defined supraspinal pain network based on prior studies. In the mild-headache group, significant increases in supraspinal function were observed in the right premotor cortex (T = 3.53, p < 0.001) and the left premotor cortex (T = 3.99, p < 0.0001) when compared to the control group. In the moderate-headache group, a significant (T = −3.05, p < 0.01) decrease in resting state activity was observed in the left superior parietal cortex when compared to the mild-headache group. In the severe-headache group, significant decreases in resting state supraspinal activities in the right insula (T = −3.46, p < 0.001), right premotor cortex (T = −3.30, p < 0.01), left premotor cortex (T = −3.84, p < 0.001), and left parietal cortex (T = −3.94, p < 0.0001), and an increase in activity in the right secondary somatosensory cortex (T = 4.05, p < 0.0001) were observed when compared to the moderate-headache group. The results of the study suggest that the increase in MTBI-HA severity may be associated with an imbalance in the supraspinal pain network with decline in supraspinal pain modulatory function and enhancement of sensory/pain decoding.


Brain Injury ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (7) ◽  
pp. 871-880
Author(s):  
Offir Laufer ◽  
Amir Geva ◽  
Jonathan D. Ellis ◽  
Kim Barber Foss ◽  
Maayan Ettinger ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Chiara Ferrari ◽  
Lucile Gamond ◽  
Marcello Gallucci ◽  
Tomaso Vecchi ◽  
Zaira Cattaneo

Abstract. Converging neuroimaging and patient data suggest that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is involved in emotional processing. However, it is still not clear whether the DLPFC in the left and right hemisphere is differentially involved in emotion recognition depending on the emotion considered. Here we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to shed light on the possible causal role of the left and right DLPFC in encoding valence of positive and negative emotional facial expressions. Participants were required to indicate whether a series of faces displayed a positive or negative expression, while TMS was delivered over the right DLPFC, the left DLPFC, and a control site (vertex). Interfering with activity in both the left and right DLPFC delayed valence categorization (compared to control stimulation) to a similar extent irrespective of emotion type. Overall, we failed to demonstrate any valence-related lateralization in the DLPFC by using TMS. Possible methodological limitations are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Borgomaneri ◽  
Francesca Vitale ◽  
Simone Battaglia ◽  
Alessio Avenanti

The ability to rapidly process others’ emotional signals is crucial for adaptive social interactions. However, to date it is still unclear how observing emotional facial expressions affects the reactivity of the human motor cortex. To provide insights on this issue, we employed single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate corticospinal motor excitability. Healthy participants observed happy, fearful and neutral pictures of facial expressions while receiving TMS over the left or right motor cortex at 150 and 300 ms after picture onset. In the early phase (150 ms), we observed an enhancement of corticospinal excitability for the observation of happy and fearful emotional faces compared to neutral expressions specifically in the right hemisphere. Interindividual differences in the disposition to experience aversive feelings (personal distress) in interpersonal emotional contexts predicted the early increase in corticospinal excitability for emotional faces. No differences in corticospinal excitability were observed at the later time (300 ms) or in the left M1. These findings support the notion that emotion perception primes the body for action and highlights the role of the right hemisphere in implementing a rapid and transient facilitatory response to emotional arousing stimuli, such as emotional facial expressions.


Author(s):  
Maida Koso-Drljević ◽  
Meri Miličević

The aim of the study was to test two assumptions about the lateralization of the processing of emotional facial expressions: the assumption of right hemisphere dominance and the valence assumption and to egsamine the influence of gender of the presented stimulus (chimera) and depression as an emotional state of participants. The sample consisted of 83 female students, with an average age of 20 years. Participants solved the Task of Recognizing Emotional Facial Expressions on a computer and then completed the DASS-21, Depression subscale. The results of the study partially confirmed the assumption of valence for the dependent variable - the accuracy of the response. Participants were recognizing more accurately the emotion of sadness than happiness when it is presented on the left side of the face, which is consistent with the valence hypothesis, according to which the right hemisphere is responsible for recognizing negative emotions. However, when it comes to the right side of the face, participants were equally accurately recognizing the emotion of sadness and happiness, which is not consistent with the valence hypothesis. The main effect of the gender of the chimera was statistically significant for the accuracy of the response, the recognition accuracy was higher for the male chimeras compared to the female. A statistically significant negative correlation was obtained between the variable sides of the face (left and right) with the achieved result on the depression subscale for the dependent variable - reaction time. The higher the score on the depressive subscale, the slower (longer) is reaction time to the presented chimera, both on the left and on the right.


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