Facial skin blood flow responses during exposures to emotionally charged movies

Abstract

The changes in regional facial skin blood flow and vascular conductance have been assessed for the first time with noninvasive two-dimensional laser speckle flowmetry during audiovisually elicited emotional challenges for 2 min (comedy, landscape, and horror movie) in 12 subjects. Limb skin blood flow and vascular conductance and systemic cardiovascular variables were simultaneously measured. The extents of pleasantness and consciousness for each emotional stimulus were estimated by the subjective rating from -5 (the most unpleasant; the most unconscious) to +5 (the most pleasant; the most conscious). Facial skin blood flow and vascular conductance, especially in the lips, decreased during viewing of comedy and horror movies, whereas they did not change during viewing of a landscape movie. The decreases in facial skin blood flow and vascular conductance were the greatest with the comedy movie. The changes in lip, cheek, and chin skin blood flow negatively correlated (P < 0.05) with the subjective ratings of pleasantness and consciousness. The changes in lip skin vascular conductance negatively correlated (P < 0.05) with the subjective rating of pleasantness, while the changes in infraorbital, subnasal, and chin skin vascular conductance negatively correlated (P < 0.05) with the subjective rating of consciousness. However, none of the changes in limb skin blood flow and vascular conductance and systemic hemodynamics correlated with the subjective ratings. The mental arithmetic task did not alter facial and limb skin blood flows, although the task influenced systemic cardiovascular variables. These findings suggest that the more emotional status becomes pleasant or conscious, the more neurally mediated vasoconstriction may occur in facial skin blood vessels.

Prefrontal oxygenation correlates to the responses in facial skin blood flows during exposure to pleasantly charged movie

“…We have reported that the changes in facial skin blood flow may serve as a more sensitive tool to assess an emotional or mood status in humans (Matsukawa et al. ). In this study, we aimed to examine whether prefrontal neural activity has positive correlation with the changes in facial skin blood flow during emotionally charged stimulation.…”

“…Matsukawa et al. () found no significant changes in hand skin blood flow and vascular conductance during any of emotional movie challenges (comedy, landscape, and horror), although forearm skin blood flow and vascular conductance decreased during exposure to comedy and/or horror movies. In this study, most systemic cardiovascular variables failed to alter significantly during exposure to any of the emotionally charged movies, although slight increases in HR and CO and a slight decrease in TPR were observed during exposure to a horror movie (Fig.…”

“…Audiovisually elicited emotional stimulation may elicit everyone more consistent pleasant feeling than viewing positively charged images or facial expressions (Matsukawa et al. ). The present study showed using this intervention that the prefrontal oxygenation decreased substantially during viewing a comedy movie, whereas it did not change significantly during viewing horror and landscape movies (Figs.…”

“…We have recently examined the effects of emotionally charged stimulation on regional facial skin blood flow and conductance with noninvasive two‐dimensional laser speckle flowmetry (Matsukawa et al. ). During viewing a positively charged comedy movie, facial skin blood flow and vascular conductance decreased in relation to the subjective rating of pleasantness.…”

“…In contrast, limb skin blood flow and vascular conductance and systemic hemodynamics showed insignificant or slight changes and none of them correlated with the subjective rating of pleasantness (Matsukawa et al. ). Thus, regional facial skin blood flow may serve as a more sensitive tool to assess an emotional status than limb skin blood flow and systemic hemodynamics.…”