Face cells in orbitofrontal cortex represent social categories
Face cells in orbitofrontal cortex represent social categories
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1806165115
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发表时间：
2018-11-20
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Duhamel, Jean-Rene
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Barat, Elodie;Wirth, Sylvia;Duhamel, Jean-Rene
从面孔中感知社会和情感信息是灵长类动物的一项关键技能。为此，灵长类动物进化出专门的皮质结构，特别是在枕颞区，利用面部选择细胞。较少了解面孔选择神经元存在于眶额皮质（OFC），是我们的研究对象。我们研究了179个面孔选择性细胞在外侧沟的眶额皮层的特征，他们的反应，以丰富的一组照片的同种面孔不同的年龄，性别和面部表情。刺激空间的主成分分析和无监督聚类分析都表明，面孔细胞编码的社会类别和情绪的面孔尺寸。代表性较强的类别是面部表情（露齿而笑和威胁与嘴唇拍打），少年和雌性猴子。聚类分析的控制人口附近的细胞缺乏面对的选择性没有分类的有意义的方式面对的刺激，这表明只有面对的选择性细胞直接支持在OFC的人脸分类。从刺激开始的面部细胞活动的时间过程分析表明，面部与非面部早期区分，其次是社会和情感内容的面部内分类（即，年轻和面部表情）。面部细胞显示没有响应的声音刺激，如发声和不良调制发声添加到脸上。神经元的反应保持稳定时，配对的积极或消极的强化，这意味着面部细胞编码的社会信息，但不学习奖励价值与面孔。总体而言，我们的研究结果揭示了眶额皮层在表征与社会和情感行为有关的面部信息中的重要作用。
Perceiving social and emotional information from faces is a critical primate skill. For this purpose, primates evolved dedicated cortical architecture, especially in occipitotemporal areas, utilizing face selective cells. Less understood face-selective neurons are present in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and are our object of study. We examined 179 face-selective cells in the lateral sulcus of the OFC by characterizing their responses to a rich set of photographs of conspecific faces varying in age, gender, and facial expression. Principal component analysis and unsupervised cluster analysis of stimulus space both revealed that face cells encode face dimensions for social categories and emotions. Categories represented strongly were facial expressions (grin and threat versus lip smack), juvenile, and female monkeys. Cluster analyses of a control population of nearby cells lacking face selectivity did not categorize face stimuli in a meaningful way, suggesting that only face-selective cells directly support face categorization in OFC. Time course analyses of face cell activity from stimulus onset showed that faces were discriminated from nonfaces early, followed by within-face categorization for social and emotion content (i.e., young and facial expression). Face cells revealed no response to acoustic stimuli such as vocalizations and were poorly modulated by vocalizations added to faces. Neuronal responses remained stable when paired with positive or negative reinforcement, implying that face cells encode social information but not learned reward value associated to faces. Overall, our results shed light on a substantial role of the OFC in the characterizations of facial information bearing on social and emotional behavior.