Valuating other people’s emotional face expression: a combined functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography study

Reading the facial expression of other people is a fundamental skill for social interaction. Human facial expressions of emotions are readily recognized but may also evoke the same experiential emotional state in the observer. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and multi-channel electroencephalography to determine in 14 right-handed healthy volunteers (29±6 years) which brain structures mediate the perception of such a shared experiential emotional state. Statistical parametric mapping showed that an area in the dorsal medial frontal cortex was specifically activated during the perception of emotions that reflected the seen happy and sad emotional face expressions. This area mapped to the pre-supplementary motor area which plays a central role in control of behavior. Low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography–based analysis of the encephalographic data revealed that the activation was detected 100 ms after face presentation onset lasting until 740 ms. Our observation substantiates recently emerging evidence suggesting that the subjective perception of an experiential emotional state—empathy—is mediated by the involvement of the dorsal medial frontal cortex.