Hippocampal Brain Volume Is Associated with Faster Facial Emotion Identification in Older Adults: Preliminary Results

Abstract

Quick correct identification of facial emotions is highly relevant for successful social interactions. Research suggests that older, compared to young, adults experience increased difficulty with face and emotion processing skills. While functional neuroimaging studies suggest age differences in neural processing of faces and emotions, evidence about age-associated structural brain changes and their involvement in face and emotion processing is scarce. Using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), this study investigated the extent to which volumes of frontal and temporal brain structures were related to reaction time in accurate identification of facial emotions in 30 young and 30 older adults. Volumetric segmentation was performed using FreeSurfer and gray matter volumes from frontal and temporal regions were extracted. Analysis of covariances (ANCOVAs) models with response time (RT) as the dependent variable and age group and regional volume, and their interaction, as independent variables were conducted, controlling for total intracranial volume (ICV). Results indicated that, in older adults, larger hippocampal volumes were associated with faster correct facial emotion identification. These preliminary observations suggest that greater volume in brain regions associated with face and emotion processing contributes to improved facial emotion identification performance in aging.

Childhood trauma, brain structure and emotion recognition in patients with schizophrenia and healthy participants

“…Similar to Aas et al (2012) , we did not find a significant association between childhood trauma and hippocampal volumes. However, we did observe a significant positive association between the ERT total score and the total, left and right volumes of the hippocampus, which is consistent with previous studies ( Fujiwara et al , 2007 ; Szymkowicz et al , 2016 ). In terms of our mediation hypothesis, the hippocampus was not observed to mediate the effects of childhood trauma on emotion recognition in either group.…”

“…We also observed a significant positive association between emotion recognition and the total, left and right volumes of the ACC. Consistent with these findings, several studies have suggested that better ability to recognise emotions is associated with larger ACC volumes in both clinical and non-clinical populations ( Fujiwara et al , 2007 ; Szymkowicz et al , 2016 ).…”

“…While emotion processing has been linked to multiple brain structures and areas, including the fusiform face area, amygdala, insula, hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex and ACC ( Fujiwara et al , 2007 ; Adolphs, 2009 ; Anticevic et al , 2012 ; Maat et al , 2016 ; Szymkowicz et al , 2016 ; Krautheim et al , 2018 ) in both structural and functional imaging studies, this study will focus on three regions of interest (ROIs)—namely, the amygdala, hippocampus and ACC—as these structures show particular sensitivity to the effects of childhood trauma.…”

Large-Scale Morphological Network Efficiency of Human Brain: Cognitive Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence

“…As we grew older, cognitive intelligence and EI exhibited distinct trajectories of development (Williams et al, 2006 , 2008 ; Giedd, 2008 ). Although not fully understood, different age groups showed differences in these behaviors that were both accompanied by the human brain morphological and functional changes (Schnack et al, 2015 ; Szymkowicz et al, 2016 ; Xia et al, 2019 ). In more detail, cognitive intelligence, such as memory and processing speed, showed a rapid increase during childhood and adolescence, which peaked around 20s to 30s and then gradually declined throughout the later part of the life span, particularly after 50 years of age (Salthouse, 2009 , 2012 , 2017 ; Singh-Manoux et al, 2012 ).…”

The correlation between fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation-based resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and facial emotion recognition ability in patients with first-episode schizophrenia

“…However, there has been little previous research on FER RT. Some studies have shown that hippocampal brain volume in older adults is positively correlated with the speed of correct FER (Szymkowicz et al 2016). Another study including patients with FSZ showed that RT for a high degree of disgust FER task was longer than HCs and increased activation of the left and right middle temporal gyrus and right caudate in response to the high degree of disgust stimulus (Yang et al 2018).…”