Abstract
The accurate recognition of emotions plays a crucial role in social interaction. Knowing what another person is feeling is relevant for predicting their future behaviour, and interaction outcome. Thus, understanding whether an emotion is authentic or not is crucial for successful social interactions in everyday life. Despite the importance of the authenticity of emotion recognition (EAR), the neural bases of such human ability are still largely unexplored, as well as how such networks are altered in patients showing EAR deficit. By investigating the EAR, this project could promote a paradigm shift in affective neuroscience research, stimulating an important revolution. Here we aim to investigate: i) the neural bases of EAR; ii) whether authentic or posed emotions activate partially segregate neural substrates; iii) which areas of the EAR network are crucial for authenticity discrimination; iv) whether is possible to boost EAR in both healthy participants and in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). To these aims, in WP1 we will perform a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study to investigate the neural underpinnings of EAR. Subsequently, we will take advantage of the ability of the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to interfere with the neural activation of specific brain regions emerging from the fMRI analysis. This experiment will provide insight about the brain regions crucially responsible for EAR in healthy participants. In WP2 we will aim to boost the functional connectivity between two brain regions that are known to be involved in emotion perception, such as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the Superior Temporal Sulcus (STS) by using an innovative TMS protocol called corticocortical paired associative stimulation (ccPAS) to ultimately increase EAR. These results will provide evidence of the existence of a feedback process from simulation to facial percept representation, revealing new insight on how the brain perceives emotion authenticity. Finally, such TMS protocol will be applied to PD patients in order to test the feasibility of translational application. Complementarity derives from the specific expertise each of the Research Unit has developed on functional magnetic resonance imaging, non-invasive brain stimulation and clinical psychology. A mixture of expertise that will converge towards one integrated goal: characterising the functional brain pathways allowing the EAR and improving such perception in patients. Despite the study on emotion authenticity may seem to be prima facie irrelevant for people’s daily life, we strongly believe the correct evaluation of others’ emotions plays a central role in mental wellbeing. Thus, knowing whether individuals are impaired in EAR is extremely relevant both for a comprehensive evaluation of a patient's difficulties, and for planning effective psychological treatments tailored to each patient's profile, which in turn would have a positive impact on patients’quality of life.
Dettagli del progetto
Responsabile scientifico: Sara Borgomaneri
Strutture Unibo coinvolte:
Dipartimento di Psicologia "Renzo Canestrari"
Coordinatore:
Università degli Studi di PADOVA(Italy)
Contributo totale Unibo: Euro (EUR) 100.000,00
Durata del progetto in mesi: 24
Data di inizio
30/11/2023
Data di fine:
29/11/2025
