Abstract
Recent neuroimaging studies suggest that neutral infant faces compared to neutral adult faces elicit greater activity in brain areas associated with face processing, attention, empathic response, reward, and movement. However, whether infant facial expressions evoke larger brain responses than adult facial expressions remains unclear. Here, we performed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging in nulliparous women while they were presented with images of matched unfamiliar infant and adult facial expressions (happy, neutral, and uncomfortable/sad) in a pseudo-randomized order. We found that the bilateral fusiform and right lingual gyrus were overall more activated during the presentation of infant facial expressions compared to adult facial expressions. Uncomfortable infant faces compared to sad adult faces evoked greater activation in the bilateral fusiform gyrus, precentral gyrus, postcentral gyrus, posterior cingulate cortex-thalamus, and precuneus. Neutral infant faces activated larger brain responses in the left fusiform gyrus compared to neutral adult faces. Happy infant faces compared to happy adult faces elicited larger responses in areas of the brain associated with emotion and reward processing using a more liberal threshold of p < 0.005 uncorrected. Furthermore, the level of the test subjects’ Interest-In-Infants was positively associated with the intensity of right fusiform gyrus response to infant faces and uncomfortable infant faces compared to sad adult faces. In addition, the Perspective Taking subscale score on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index-Chinese was significantly correlated with precuneus activity during uncomfortable infant faces compared to sad adult faces. Our findings suggest that regional brain areas may bias cognitive and emotional responses to infant facial expressions compared to adult facial expressions among nulliparous women, and this bias may be modulated by individual differences in Interest-In-Infants and perspective taking ability.
Highlights
Baby schema serves as an “innate releasing mechanism”, a fundamental social instinct that serves to initiate and maintain a parent-infant relationship [1]
We found that Interest-In-Infants was positively associated with the beta values of right fusiform gyrus (FFG) response to happy, neutral, and uncomfortable infant facial expression
The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore whether neural response is biased toward infant facial expressions compared to adult facial expressions in nulliparous women
Summary
Baby schema serves as an “innate releasing mechanism”, a fundamental social instinct that serves to initiate and maintain a parent-infant relationship [1]. Kringelbach [3] reported that unfamiliar infant faces compared to carefully matched unfamiliar adult faces elicited greater activation in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), which is associated with reward processing. Another recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study revealed that infant faces evoked stronger activation in motor-related areas than matched adult faces, including the lateral premotor cortex and supplementary motor area, and no difference in brain activation is observed compared adult faces to infant faces [4]. Activation of motor-related regions in response to infant faces suggests preparation by adults for communicative behavior with infants as well as attachment and caregiving These studies have uncovered the biological basis for the ‘‘innate releasing mechanism” for affection and nurturing of young infants, as described by Lorenz [5]
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