Deeper than skin deep – The effect of botulinum toxin-A on emotion processing

• Effect of facial Botox use on perception of emotional stimuli was investigated.
• Particularly perception of slightly emotional stimuli was blunted after Botox use.
• The perception of very emotional stimuli was less affected.
• After Botox use, reaction times to slightly emotional stimuli increased.
• Specifically weakly emotional stimuli seem to benefit from facial feedback.

The effect of facial botulinum Toxin-A (BTX) injections on the processing of emotional stimuli was investigated. The hypothesis, that BTX would interfere with processing of slightly emotional stimuli and less with very emotional or neutral stimuli, was largely confirmed. BTX-users rated slightly emotional sentences and facial expressions, but not very emotional or neutral ones, as less emotional after the treatment. Furthermore, they became slower at categorizing slightly emotional facial expressions under time pressure.