Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Humans and other primates spend much of their time engaged in social interactions where a crucial ability is to decode face expressions and act accordingly. This rapid reversal learning has been proposed to be important in the relative evolutionary success of primates. Here we provide the first neuroimaging evidence that the ability to change behaviour based on face expression in a model of social interactions is not reflected in the activity in the fusiform face area, but is specifically correlated with activity in the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate/paracingulate cortices. These brain regions are particularly involved in reversal learning, such that the activations described occurred specifically at the time of reversal, and were also found when different face expressions other than angry were used to cue reversal. The evidence that the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate/paracingulate cortices are specifically activated at the time of reversal is important for understanding changes in affect and emotional processing in patients with lesions to these brain regions.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/S1053-8119(03)00393-8

Type

Journal article

Journal

Neuroimage

Publication Date

10/2003

Volume

20

Pages

1371 - 1383

Keywords

Adult, Anger, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Cues, Emotions, Evoked Potentials, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Interpersonal Relations, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Models, Neurological, Neurons, Reversal Learning