Abstract
Neuroticism is one of the “Big Five” personality factors and is characterized by a tendency to experience negative affect. We aimed to investigate how neuroticism influences the neural correlates for processing of emotional facial expressions. 68 healthy participants were presented with emotional dynamic facial stimuli, i.e. happy, neutral or angry, during functional MRI. Brain activations for the contrasts emotional vs. neutral, happy vs. neutral and angry vs. neutral were correlated with individuals’ neuroticism scores as obtained by the NEO Five Factor Inventory questionnaire and additionally investigated for gender differences. The bilateral medial temporal gyrus (MTG) was identified as key region in the processing of emotional faces and activations within this region correlated with individual neuroticism scores. Although female participants showed significantly stronger activation differences between emotional and neutral facial expressions in the left MTG, the correlation between activation and neuroticism scores did not show any significant gender differences. Our results offer for the first time a biological correlate within the face processing network for enhanced reactivity of neurotic individuals to emotional facial expressions which occurs similarly for both male and female participants.
Highlights
According to the so-called “Big Five” personality model, the human personality can be described by five different personality traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness[1]
Bridging the gap between basic functions underlying social interaction and individual personality traits, we aimed to identify the neural correlates of neuroticism with regards to the processing of emotional facial expressions using functional MRI in a large cohort of healthy participants
We investigated the impact of neuroticism on processing of dynamic emotional facial stimuli
Summary
According to the so-called “Big Five” personality model, the human personality can be described by five different personality traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness[1]. Several neuroimaging studies have been performed to investigate the neural correlates of neuroticism using different stimulus categories. Bridging the gap between basic functions underlying social interaction and individual personality traits, we aimed to identify the neural correlates of neuroticism with regards to the processing of emotional facial expressions using functional MRI in a large cohort of healthy participants. To identify brain areas associated with certain personality traits, especially neuroticism, activations were correlated with participants’ personality scores as obtained by the NEO Five. We hypothesized that activity of areas supporting processing of dynamic facial information, i.e. the cortical areas adjacent to the pSTS, is correlated with neuroticism. We examined whether relationships between neuroticism and activation to emotional faces are different or similar in male and female participants
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