The shared neural basis of empathy and facial imitation accuracy

Braadbaart, Lieke; Grauw, Haro de; Perrett, David I.; Waiter, Gordon D.; Williams, Justin H. G.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.08.061

Cited by 49 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Consistent with prior resting state studies of an intentional expression network that has been identified in healthy adults (Braadbaart et al, 2014), which we refer to as the emotional apraxia network, we found that deficits in intentional imitation of emotional expression were predicted by volume loss in cortical regions including the R > L operculum (CO/FO), insula, mOFC, IFG and SMG. This network mirrors the “speech production network” that has been identified as pathogenic in patients with apraxic motor speech disorders (Mandelli et al, 2014), and suggests that intentional motor facial expression of emotion is a very similar process.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

A neural network underlying intentional emotional facial expression in neurodegenerative disease

Gola

Shany‐Ur

Pressman

et al. 2017

NeuroImage: Clinical

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Intentional facial expression of emotion is critical to healthy social interactions. Patients with neurodegenerative disease, particularly those with right temporal or prefrontal atrophy, show dramatic socioemotional impairment. This was an exploratory study examining the neural and behavioral correlates of intentional facial expression of emotion in neurodegenerative disease patients and healthy controls. One hundred and thirty three participants (45 Alzheimer's disease, 16 behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, 8 non-fluent primary progressive aphasia, 10 progressive supranuclear palsy, 11 right-temporal frontotemporal dementia, 9 semantic variant primary progressive aphasia patients and 34 healthy controls) were video recorded while imitating static images of emotional faces and producing emotional expressions based on verbal command; the accuracy of their expression was rated by blinded raters. Participants also underwent face-to-face socioemotional testing and informants described participants' typical socioemotional behavior. Patients' performance on emotion expression tasks was correlated with gray matter volume using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) across the entire sample. We found that intentional emotional imitation scores were related to fundamental socioemotional deficits; patients with known socioemotional deficits performed worse than controls on intentional emotion imitation; and intentional emotional expression predicted caregiver ratings of empathy and interpersonal warmth. Whole brain VBMs revealed a rightward cortical atrophy pattern homologous to the left lateralized speech production network was associated with intentional emotional imitation deficits. Results point to a possible neural mechanisms underlying complex socioemotional communication deficits in neurodegenerative disease patients.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

A neural network underlying intentional emotional facial expression in neurodegenerative disease

Gola

Shany‐Ur

Pressman

et al. 2017

NeuroImage: Clinical

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“…With limited motor ability, it already becomes more difficult to perform the aforementioned elementary rhythmic extremity movements and babbling articulations, in the second half year of life, which may be so crucial for setting up connections between action and perceptual brain circuits and serve later as a vehicle for repetitions. Incidentally, as we have seen in Sections 2 and 4, the ability to repeatedly articulate verbally (in babbling) and to move are amongst those early deficits present in autistic infants, and the resultant reduced production of vocal and motor acts has implications for the development of further social and cognitive domains, including empathy (Braadbaart, de Grauw, Perrett, Waiter, & Williams, 2014;Decety & Meltzoff, 2011;Meltzoff & Decety, 2003). Needham and Libertus (2011) link the development of reaching behaviours to the ability to interpret others' reaches as goal directed; the ability to crawl to that of representing space in a nonegocentric or allocentric manner; the ability to sit and reach and thus take part in hiding games to object permanence.…”

mentioning

confidence: 83%

What can autism teach us about the role of sensorimotor systems in higher cognition? New clues from studies on language, action semantics, and abstract emotional concept processing

Moseley

Pulvermüller

2018

Cortex

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“…Indeed, it has been argued that while facial expressions may predominantly produce empathic understanding in the observer, bodily expressions may call more for reaction to the needs of the observed individual (De Gelder, 2009). Furthermore, the ability to imitate and simulate others' body actions seems to be related to better social understanding and empathy (Braadbaart, de Grauw, Perrett, Waiter, & Williams, 2014;Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). It is conceivable that maternal ability in perceiving both facial and body posture cues in their infants' behavior is important to support a mother's sensitivity during interaction with her infants.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationship Between Maternal Sensitivity During Early Interaction and Maternal Ability in Perceiving Infants' Body and Face

Montirosso

Casini

Borgatti

et al. 2016

Infancy

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Maternal sensitivity has been considered an indicator of mother‐infant quality interaction, however little is known about the perception processes associated to this parental behavior style. Here we aimed to explore the relationship between maternal sensitivity during a face‐to‐face interaction with their infants and maternal ability in perceiving infants' body and face. Thirty‐six 6 month‐old infants and their mothers were videotaped during a mother‐infant interaction to identify those with high and low sensitivity. Then, mothers were tested using an inversion effect paradigm requiring the visual discrimination of upright and inverted pictures of whole bodies and faces of their own and unfamiliar infants; this allowed estimation of their configural perceptual processing abilities. Results showed that high‐sensitivity mothers showed reduced body configural processing for others' infants as compared to configural processing of their own infant, whereas low‐sensitivity mothers were engaged in comparable body configural processing independently from infant identity. Infants' face configural processing did not distinguish between high‐ and low‐sensitivity mothers. Our findings suggest that high‐sensitivity mothers have refined their use of configural processing of body postures to be selective for their own infants, suggesting that this visuo‐perceptual strategy makes much more efficient the mothers' ability in detecting, discriminating and recognizing own infant's cues.

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The shared neural basis of empathy and facial imitation accuracy

Cited by 49 publications

References 56 publications

A neural network underlying intentional emotional facial expression in neurodegenerative disease

A neural network underlying intentional emotional facial expression in neurodegenerative disease

What can autism teach us about the role of sensorimotor systems in higher cognition? New clues from studies on language, action semantics, and abstract emotional concept processing

Relationship Between Maternal Sensitivity During Early Interaction and Maternal Ability in Perceiving Infants' Body and Face

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