| 1. |
- Horta, Marilyn, et al.
(författare)
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Oxytocin alters patterns of brain activity and amygdalar connectivity by age during dynamic facial emotion identification
- 2019
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Ingår i: Neurobiology of Aging. - : Elsevier. - 0197-4580 .- 1558-1497. ; 78, s. 42-51
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aging is associated with increased difficulty in facial emotion identification, possibly due to age-related network change. The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) facilitates emotion identification, but this is understudied in aging. To determine the effects of OT on dynamic facial emotion identification across adulthood, 46 young and 48 older participants self-administered intranasal OT or a placebo in a randomized, double-blind procedure. Older participants were slower and less accurate in identifying emotions. Although there was no behavioral treatment effect, partial least squares analysis supported treatment effects on brain patterns during emotion identification that varied by age and emotion. For young participants, OT altered the processing of sadness and happiness, whereas for older participants, OT only affected the processing of sadness (15.3% covariance, p = 0.004). Furthermore, seed partial least squares analysis showed that older participants in the OT group recruited a large-scale amygdalar network that was positively correlated for anger, fear, and happiness, whereas older participants in the placebo group recruited a smaller, negatively correlated network (7% covariance, p = 0.002). Advancing the literature, these findings show that OT alters brain activity and amygdalar connectivity by age and emotion.
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| 2. |
- Ziaei, Maryam, et al.
(författare)
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Amygdala functional network during recognition of own-age vs. other-age faces in younger and older adults
- 2019
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Ingår i: Neuropsychologia. - : Elsevier BV. - 0028-3932 .- 1873-3514. ; 129, s. 10-20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Facial cues, such as a person's age, provide important information for social interactions. Processing such facial cues can be affected by observer bias. However, there is currently no consensus regarding how the brain is processing facial cues related to age, and if facial age processing changes as a function of the age of the observer (i.e., own-age bias). The primary study aim was to investigate functional networks involved in processing own-age vs. other-age faces among younger and older adults and determine how emotional expression of the face modulates own-age vs. other-age face processing. The secondary study aim was to examine the relation between higher social cognitive processes (i.e., empathy) and modulation of brain activity by facial age and emotional expression. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) younger and older participants were asked to recognize happy, angry, and neutral expressions in own-age and other-age faces. Functional connectivity analyses with the amygdala as seed showed that for own-age faces both age groups recruited a network of regions including the anterior cingulate and anterior insula that was involved in empathy and detection of salient information. Brain-behavior analyses furthermore showed that empathic responses in younger, but not in older, participants were positively correlated with engagement of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of angry own-age faces. These findings identify the neurobehavioral correlates of facial age processing, and its modulation by emotion expression, and directly link facial cue processing to higher-order social cognitive functioning.
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| 3. |
- Ziaei, Maryam, et al.
(författare)
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Neural correlates of affective empathy in aging : A multimodal imaging and multivariate approach
- 2022
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Ingår i: Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition. - : Routledge. - 1382-5585 .- 1744-4128. ; 29:3, s. 577-598
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Empathy is one such social-cognitive capacity that undergoes age-related change. C urrently, however, not well understood is the structural and functional neurocircuitry underlying age-related differences in empathy. This study aimed to delineate brain structural and functional networks that subserve affective empathic response in younger and older adults using a modified version of the Multifaceted Empathy Task to both positive and negative emotions. Combining multimodal neuroimaging with multivariate partial least square analysis resulted in two novel findings in older but not younger adults: (a) faster empathic responding to negative emotions was related to greater fractional anisotropy of the anterior cingulum and greater functional activity of the anterior cingulate network; (b) however, empathic responding to positive emotions was related to greater fractional anisotropy of the posterior cingulum and greater functional activity of the posterior cingulate network. Such differentiation of structural and functional networks might have critical implications for prosocial behavior and social connections among older adults.
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| 4. |
- Cortes, Diana S., et al.
(författare)
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Age-Related Differences in Evaluation of Social Attributes From Computer-Generated Faces of Varying Intensity
- 2019
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Ingår i: Psychology and Aging. - : American Psychological Association (APA). - 0882-7974 .- 1939-1498. ; 34:5, s. 686-697
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In everyday life throughout the life span, people frequently evaluate faces to obtain information crucial for social interactions. We investigated age-related differences in judgments of a wide range of social attributes based on facial appearance. Seventy-one younger and 60 older participants rated 196 computer-generated faces that systematically varied in facial features such as shape and reflectance to convey different intensity levels of seven social attributes (i.e., attractiveness, competence, dominance, extraversion, likeability, threat, and trustworthiness). Older compared to younger participants consistently gave higher attractiveness ratings to faces representing both high and low levels of attractiveness. Older participants were also less sensitive to the likeability of faces and tended to evaluate faces representing low likeability as more likable. The age groups did, however, not differ substantially in their evaluations of the other social attributes. Results are in line with previous research showing that aging is associated with preference toward positive and away from negative information and extend this positivity effect to social perception of faces.
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| 5. |
- Cortes, Diana S., et al.
(författare)
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Oxytocin may facilitate neural recruitment in medial prefrontal cortex and superior temporal gyrus during emotion recognition in young but not older adults
- 2020
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Ingår i: 2020 Cognitive Aging Conference. ; , s. 22-23
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Normal adult aging is associated with decline in some socioemotional abilities, such as the ability to recognize emotions in others, and age-related neurobiological processes may contribute to these deficits. There is increasing evidence that the neuropeptide oxytocin plays a key role in social cognition, including emotion recognition. The mechanisms through which oxytocin promotes emotion recognition are not well understood yet, and particularly in aging. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled within-subjects design, we investigated the extent to which a single dose of 40 IU of intranasal oxytocin facilitates emotion recognition in 40 younger (M = 24.90 yrs., SD = 2.97, 48% women) and 40 older (M = 69.70 yrs., SD = 2.99, 55% women) men and women. During two fMRI sessions, participants viewed dynamic positive and negative emotional displays. Preliminary analyses show that younger participants recognized positive and negative emotions more accurately than older participants (p < .001), with this behavioral effect not modulated by oxytocin. In the brain data, however, we found an age x treatment interaction in medial prefrontal cortex (xyz [14, 14, 6], p = .007) and superior temporal gyrus (xyz [53, 9, 2], p = .031). In particular, oxytocin (vs. placebo) reduced activity in these regions for older participants, while it enhanced activity in these regions for younger participants. In line with previous research, these findings support the notion that the effects of oxytocin vary by context and individual factors (e.g., social proficiency, age).
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| 6. |
- Cortes S., Diana, et al.
(författare)
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Does single-dose intranasal oxytocin facilitate neural recruitment in younger and older adults during negative compared to positive dynamic multimodal expressions?
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Normal adult aging is associated with a decline in socioemotional abilities, and underlying these deficits are age-related neurobiological processes. There is increasing evidence that the neuropeptide oxytocin plays a key role in social cognition, specifically in the ability to recognize emotions. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled within-subjects design, we investigated the extent to which a single dose of 40 IU of intranasal oxytocin facilitates neural recruitment in younger and older adults during negative compared to positive dynamic multimodal expressions. Based on the literature, several regions of interest were selected prior analyses: insula, amygdala, caudate head, fusiform gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, medial orbitofrontal cortex, ventral medial prefrontal cortex, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Behavioral data showed that younger adults outperformed older adults. and higher accuracy scores were observed during the PL condition compared to the OT condition. This was further qualified by the brain data, where OT induced brain activity reductions in the fusiform gyrus, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and medial orbitofrontal cortex in response to negative compared to positive expressions. Both age groups showed hypoactivity in most regions of interest during auditory stimuli compared to visual and multimodal stimuli. In line with previous research, these findings suggest that the effects of oxytocin may vary due to context, social proficiency, and individual factors (i.e. age). Future studies should target how age, presentation modality, and oxytocin interact.
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| 7. |
- Ebner, Natalie C., et al.
(författare)
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Emotion and Aging : Evidence from Brain and Behavior
- 2014
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Emotions play a central role in every human life from the moment we are born until we die. They prepare the body for action, highlight what should be noticed and remembered, and guide decisions and actions. As emotions are central to daily functioning, it is important to understand how aging affects perception, memory, experience, as well as regulation of emotions. The Frontiers research topic Emotion and Aging: Evidence from Brain and Behavior takes a step into uncovering emotional aging considering both brain and behavioral processes. The contributions featured in this issue adopt innovative theoretical perspectives and use novel methodological approaches to target a variety of topics that can be categorized into three overarching questions: How do cognition and emotion interact in aging in brain and behavior? What are behavioral and brain-related moderators of emotional aging? Does emotion-regulatory success as reflected in brain and behavior change with age? In this perspective paper we discuss theoretical innovation, methodological approach, and scientific advancement of the thirteen papers in the context of the broader literature on emotional aging. We conclude by reflecting on topics untouched and future directions to take.
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| 8. |
- Ebner, Natalie C., et al.
(författare)
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Neural mechanisms of reading facial emotions in young and older adults
- 2012
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 3:19
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ability to read and appropriately respond to emotions in others is central for successful social interaction. Young and older adults are better at identifying positive than negative facial expressions and also expressions of young than older faces. Little, however, is known about the neural processes associated with reading different emotions, particularly in faces of different ages, in samples of young and older adults. During fMRI, young and older participants identified expressions in happy, neutral, and angry young and older faces. The results suggest a functional dissociation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) in reading facial emotions that is largely comparable in young and older adults: Both age groups showed greater vmPFC activity to happy compared to angry or neutral faces, which was positively correlated with expression identification for happy compared to angry faces. In contrast, both age groups showed greater activity in dmPFC to neutral or angry than happy faces which was negatively correlated with expression identification for neutral compared to happy faces. A similar region of dmPFC showed greater activity for older than young faces, but no brain-behavior correlations. Greater vmPFC activity in the present study may reflect greater affective processing involved in reading happy compared to neutral or angry faces. Greater dmPFC activity may reflect more cognitive control involved in decoding and/or regulating negative emotions associated with neutral or angry than happy, and older than young, faces.
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| 9. |
- Ebner, Natalie C., et al.
(författare)
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Oxytocin modulates meta-mood as a function of age and sex
- 2015
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1663-4365. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Attending to and understanding one's own feelings are components of meta mood and constitute important socio-affective skills across the entire lifespan. Growing evidence suggests a modulatory role of the neuropeptide oxytocin on various socio-affective processes. Going beyond previous work that almost exclusively examined young men and perceptions of emotions in others, the current study investigated effects of intranasal oxytocin on meta-mood in young and older men and women. In a double-blind between-group design, participants were randomly assigned to self-administer either intranasal oxytocin or a placebo before responding to items from the Trait Meta Mood Scale (TMMS) about attention to feelings and clarity of feelings. In contrast to older women, oxytocin relative to placebo increased attention to feelings in older men. Oxytocin relative to placebo enhanced meta-mood in young female participants but reduced it in older female participants. This pattern of findings supports an age- and sex-differential modulatory function of the neuropeptide oxytocin on meta-mood, possibly associated with neurobiological differences with age and sex.
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| 10. |
- Ebner, Natalie C., et al.
(författare)
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Oxytocin’s effect on resting-state functional connectivity varies by age and sex
- 2016
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Ingår i: Psychoneuroendocrinology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0306-4530 .- 1873-3360. ; 69, s. 50-59
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The neuropeptide oxytocin plays a role in social cognition and affective processing. The neural processes underlying these effects are not well understood. Modulation of connectivity strength between subcortical and cortical regions has been suggested as one possible mechanism. The current study investigated effects of intranasal oxytocin administration on resting-state functional connectivity between amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), as two regions involved in social-cognitive and affective processing. Going beyond previous work that largely examined young male participants, our study comprised young and older men and women to identify age and sex variations in oxytocin’s central processes. This approach was based on known hormonal differences among these groups and emerging evidence of sex differences in oxytocin’s effects on amygdala reactivity and age-by-sex-modulated effects of oxytocin in affective processing. In a double-blind design, 79 participants were randomly assigned to self-administer either intranasal oxytocin or placebo before undergoing resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Using a targeted region-to-region approach, resting-state functional connectivity strength between bilateral amygdala and mPFC was examined. Participants in the oxytocin compared to the placebo group and men compared to women had overall greater amygdala–mPFC connectivity strength at rest. These main effects were qualified by a significant three-way interaction: while oxytocin compared to placebo administration increased resting-state amygdala–mPFC connectivity for young women, oxytocin did not significantly influence connectivity in the other age-by-sex subgroups. This study provides novel evidence of age-by-sex differences in how oxytocin modulates resting-state brain connectivity, furthering our understanding of how oxytocin affects brain networks at rest.
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