Familiarity Processing through Faces and Names: Insights from Multivoxel Pattern Analysis

The way our brain processes personal familiarity is still debatable. We used searchlight multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to identify areas where local fMRI patterns could contribute to familiarity detection for both faces and name categories. Significantly, we identified cortical areas in frontal, temporal, cingulate, and insular areas, where it is possible to accurately cross-classify familiar stimuli from one category using a classifier trained with the stimulus from the other (i.e., abstract familiarity) based on local fMRI patterns. We also discovered several areas in the fusiform gyrus, frontal, and temporal regions—primarily lateralized to the right hemisphere—supporting the classification of familiar faces but failing to do so for names. Also, responses to familiar names (compared to unfamiliar names) consistently showed less activation strength than responses to familiar faces (compared to unfamiliar faces). The results evinced a set of abstract familiarity areas (independent of the stimulus type) and regions specifically related only to face familiarity, contributing to recognizing familiar individuals.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Grant PSI2011- 28530)Cuban Neuroscience and Neurotechnology Program (PN305LH013-010

El valor reforzador de las caras de personas queridas: un estudio de resonancia magnética funcional

We have known since decades about the positive influence of social support and positive emotions on health. Different hypothesis have been made in order to understand the relationship between these factors and physiological and psychological indexes of health and wellbeing. One of these hypothesis suggest that secure, caring and loving environments act as safety cues that activates the reward system and inhibits defensive reactions. Previous studies from our lab have shown that viewing loved familiar faces activates the appetitive motivational system and inhibits defensive responses. In these study we compared central activation during the passive viewing of loved familiar faces with the activation associated with other highly rewarding stimuli (attractive faces). Our results show that loved familiar faces provoked a higher activation of the brain reward system, e.g. the medial orbitofrontal cortex

Reward value of loved familiar faces: an FMRI study

Desde hace décadas se conoce la influencia beneficiosa que tanto el apoyo social como de las emociones positivas ejercen sobre la salud. Diferentes hipótesis se han postulado acerca de cómo estos factores influyen sobre diferentes índices fisiológicos y psicológicos de bienestar y salud. Una de la hipótesis planteadas sugiere que los entornos seguros, cálidos y cariñosos actúan como señales de seguridad activando el sistema motivacional apetitivo e inhibiendo el sistema defensivo. Un estudio previo en nuestro laboratorio ha mostrado que la visualización de caras de personas familiares queridas activa el sistema motivacional apetitivo e inhibe respuestas defensivas. En este estudio quisimos comparar la activación central ante caras queridas con la activación provocada por otro tipo de caras altamente gratificantes (caras atractivas). Nuestros resultados señalan que las caras familiares queridas activaron con mayor intensidad algunas de las áreas asociadas con el sistema de recompensa, en concreto la corteza orbito-frontal medial

Sociodemographic characteristics of mothers and personality variables in neglectful and control groups.

<p><i>Note</i>: p<.05*; p<.001**.</p

Time-Frequency representations (TFRs) of the power changes in control and neglectful mothers to positive, negative and neutral pictures.

<p>A) TF plots are given for C3 depicting power changes in the three categories of pictures for control and neglectful mothers, with red representing power increase and blue depicting power decrease relative to baseline. B) Plots are given for differences between the two groups of mothers for each category (left-hand side) and the statistically thresholded TFRs (p<.05; right-hand side). C) Scalp topographies are given for significant power changes between the two groups. In the delta, theta and lower alpha bands, a higher power increase is observed for control mothers than for neglectful mothers at frontal sites (time windows after stimulus onset from 300–800 ms, 200–400 ms, and 600–800 ms, respectively). A higher power increase in the theta band, especially in negative pictures, and in the lower alpha band for negative pictures only is observed at occipital sites in neglectful mothers as compared to control mothers. The scaling was optimized according to the maximum value. The original values of control versus neglectful group differences in power increases per condition and band were the following: For positive stimuli (delta from 50.9 to 3.5; theta from 15.4 to −20.8); for negative stimuli (delta from 43.9 to 1.2; theta from 22.4 to −58.1; lower alpha from 39.0 to −34.3); for neutral stimuli (delta from 44.6 to 8.3; theta from 18.3 to −36.4).</p

P200 and LPP components in control and neglectful mothers to positive, negative and neutral pictures.

<p>(A) Grand-averaged ERP waveforms corresponding to the midline electrodes Fz, Cz and Pz. The P200 was more pronounced for positive pictures than for neutral pictures at the frontal area in both groups. LPP was more pronounced for positive and negative pictures than for neutral pictures at the fronto-centro-parietal areas in both groups. Dotted ellipses indicate the maximum amplitude for each group. Scalp topographies are given (B) for P200 and (C) for LPP, showing different amplitudes by category of pictures (black, red and green squares), and by group (control-neglectful).</p