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Conscious and Non-conscious Representations of Emotional Faces in Asperger's Syndrome

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Serotonergic modulation of face-emotion recognition.

C M Del-Ben¹, C A Q Ferreira, W C Alves-Neto

¹Divisão de Psiquiatria, Departamento de Neurologia, Psiquiatria e Psicologia Médica, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brasil. delben@fmrp.usp.br

Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research = Revista Brasileira De Pesquisas Medicas E Biologicas

|April 9, 2008

Summary

Serotonin (5-HT) enhances the recognition of fearful faces, suggesting they are processed as potential threats. However, 5-HT does not impair the recognition of angry faces as proximal threats.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Psychology
Pharmacology

Background:

Facial expressions are crucial for understanding emotion processing.
The role of serotonin (5-HT) in processing threat-related facial expressions is not fully understood.
Fearful faces may signal potential threats, while angry faces may signal proximal threats.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the literature on the effects of serotonin on the perception of emotional faces.
To test the hypothesis that serotonin modulates the processing of threat-related facial expressions.
To investigate the relationship between serotonin function and the recognition of fearful and angry faces.

Main Methods:

Literature review of studies investigating the effects of pharmacological agents affecting serotonin neurotransmission.
Analysis of behavioral data on the recognition of emotional faces under varying serotonin levels.
Synthesis of findings regarding serotonin's impact on processing fearful versus angry facial expressions.

Main Results:

Increased serotonin (5-HT) neurotransmission facilitates the recognition of fearful faces.
Decreased serotonin (5-HT) neurotransmission impairs the recognition of fearful faces.
The hypothesis that increased 5-HT impairs the recognition of angry faces was not supported.

Conclusions:

Fearful faces are likely processed as potential threats, with serotonin enhancing this processing.
Serotonin's role in processing angry faces as proximal threats requires further investigation.
Findings support the role of serotonin in modulating threat detection and risk assessment via facial expression recognition.