Gender Differences in Recognition of Facial Expression:A fMRI Study

Objective To detect brain areas related to facial emotion recognition tasks,and to analyze the differences of activated areas between female and male subjects.Materials and Methods Twenty two healthy volunteers(11 men,11 women,aged 26 to 37 years) were included in this study.Functional MRI data was accepted by Using GE 1.5T MR scanner.Experimental task was facial expression recognition,colorized negative,positive,neutral facial expression pictures were adopted in this study.SPM5 software was used to process fMRI data.Statistically significant voxel of brain regions and the MNI coordinates of activation were recorded.Results The reaction time of the two groups was statistical different(P0.05);the perception accuracy was not statistical different(P0.05).Different brain area of the positive facial expression stimuli:Female-Male:the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex(BA11);both sides of the inferior parietal lobule(BA39,40);left inferior temporal gyrus(BA38);the right cerebellum.Male-Female:the right lateral prefrontal cortex(BA6,10,44);both sides of precuneus(BA7、19);left superior temporal gyrus(BA42);both sides of the posterior cingulate cortex(BA24,30),left parahippocampal gyrus(BA30);both sides of posterior cerebellum;left caudate nucleus.Different brain area of the negative facial expression stimuli: Female-Male:both sides of dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex(BA9,10,47),both sides of medial prefrontal cortex(BA9);right precuneus(BA7);left cuneus(BA18);both sides of the cerebellum.Male-Female:the left paracentral lobule(BA6),left premotor area(BA6);left caudate nucleus.Conclusion Activation of frontal lobe in positive facial expression recognition exists lateralization phenomenon,presented with right prominence in male,and left prominence in female.Negative face stimuli cause more obvious activation in frontal lobe and cerebellum in female.Premotor areas play more important role in processing facial emotion in male than female.