Sex differences in how stress affects brain activity during face viewing.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Social Sciences

Background:

• Men and women exhibit distinct social responses to stress.
• Previous research suggests potential sex differences in emotional processing under stress.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate sex-based differences in brain activity during emotional face perception under acute stress.
• To examine how stress modulates neural responses and functional connectivity related to emotion processing in men and women.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity.
• Participants viewed emotional faces under acute stress conditions.
• Analysis focused on the fusiform face area, amygdala, insula, temporal pole, and inferior frontal gyrus, and their functional connectivity.

Main Results:

• Acute stress diminished fusiform face area (FFA) response to faces in men but increased it in women.
• In stressed men viewing angry faces, reduced coordination between the FFA, amygdala, and emotion interpretation regions was observed.
• Conversely, stress increased functional connectivity among these same regions in women.

Conclusions:

• Stress differentially affects neural processing of emotional faces in men and women.
• These findings highlight distinct neurobiological pathways underlying sex-specific stress responses in emotional perception.