Increasing associative plasticity in temporo-occipital back-projections improves visual perception of emotions

Autor: Sara Borgomaneri, Marco Zanon, Paolo Di Luzio, Antonio Cataneo, Giorgio Arcara, Vincenzo Romei, Marco Tamietto, Alessio Avenanti
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nature Communications, Vol 14, Iss 1, Pp 1-15 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2041-1723
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41058-3
Popis: Abstract The posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) is a critical node in a network specialized for perceiving emotional facial expressions that is reciprocally connected with early visual cortices (V1/V2). Current models of perceptual decision-making increasingly assign relevance to recursive processing for visual recognition. However, it is unknown whether inducing plasticity into reentrant connections from pSTS to V1/V2 impacts emotion perception. Using a combination of electrophysiological and neurostimulation methods, we demonstrate that strengthening the connectivity from pSTS to V1/V2 selectively increases the ability to perceive facial expressions associated with emotions. This behavior is associated with increased electrophysiological activity in both these brain regions, particularly in V1/V2, and depends on specific temporal parameters of stimulation that follow Hebbian principles. Therefore, we provide evidence that pSTS-to-V1/V2 back-projections are instrumental to perception of emotion from facial stimuli and functionally malleable via manipulation of associative plasticity.
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