Ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity differentiates sick from healthy faces: Associations with inflammatory responses and disease avoidance motivation.
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity differentiates sick from healthy faces: Associations with inflammatory responses and disease avoidance motivation.
复制标题
腹内侧前额叶皮层活动区分病人和健康的面孔：与炎症反应和疾病回避动机的关联。
DOI：
10.1016/j.bbi.2021.11.011
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发表时间：
2022
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Eisenberger,NaomiI
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Leschak,CarrianneJ;Hornstein,EricaA;ByrneHaltom,KateE;Johnson,KerriL;Breen,ElizabethC;Irwin,MichaelR;Eisenberger,NaomiI
BackgroundHumans are able to discern the health status of others using olfactory and visual cues, and subsequently shift behavior to make infection less likely. However, little is known about how this process occurs. The present study examined the neural regions involved in differentiating healthy from sick individuals using visual cues.MethodsWhile undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, participants (N= 42) viewed facial photos of 30 individuals (targets) who had been injected with an inflammatory challenge--low-dose endotoxin (i.e., sick) or placebo (i.e., healthy), and rated how much they liked each face. We examined regions implicated in processing either threat (amygdala, anterior insula) or cues that signal safety (ventromedial prefrontal cortex [VMPFC]), and how this activity related to their liking of targets and cytokine levels (interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α) exhibited by the targets.ResultsPhotos of sick faces were rated as less likeable compared to healthy faces, and the least liked faces were those individuals with the greatest inflammatory response. While threat-related regions were not significantly active in response to viewing sick faces, the VMPFC was more active in response to viewing healthy (vs. sick) faces. Follow-up analyses revealed that participants tended to have lower VMPFC activity when viewing the least liked faces and the faces of those with the greatest inflammatory response.ConclusionsThis work builds on prior work implicating the VMPFC in signaling the presence of safe, non-threatening visual stimuli, and suggests the VMPFC may be sensitive to cues signaling relative safety in the context of pathogen threats.
