1. + [M.V. Peelen,A.P. Atkinson and P. Vuilleumier The Journal of Neuroscience, July 28, 2010 30(30):1012710134 ] SUPRAMODAL REPRESENTATIONS OF PERCEIVED EMOTIONS IN THE HUMAN BRAINMONDAY 27 FEBRUARY 2012 MSCs: Angelo Bruschi, MD

2. + INTRODUCTION (I) Successful social interaction requires a precise understanding of the feelings, thoughts, intentions and desires of other people. Humans have the exceptional ability to infer complex mental states from subtle sensory cues. (e.g. Face, Body, Voice). (de Gelder et al., 2006 ) These signals lead to the recognition of an emotional state and activate similar emotion-specific responses in the observer. (Magne et al., 2007)

3. + MAIN QUESTION (II) ARE THERE ANY BRAIN REGIONS THAT ENCODE EMOTIONS INDIPENDENTLY OF THE MODALITY THROUGH WICH THEY ARE PERCEIVED?

4. + STUDY DESIGN (III) VOICE STIMULI HEALTY fMRI BODY VOLUNTEERS RESPONSES EMOTIONS FACIAL EMOTIONS

5. + PARTICIPANTS(IV) 18 Adult Healthy Volunteers (10 women, mean age 26, range 20-32) HAPPINESS ANGER All right handed, normal vision, no history SADNESS of psychiatric or neurological disease FEAR DISGUST 5 different emotions chosen

6. + EMOTIONAL STIMULI: FACES (V) Movies of emotional faces expression taken from Banse and Scherer (1996). Non facial body parts were cropped. 5 different emotions chosen (Anger, Disgust, Happiness, Fear, Sadness). Four actors (2 male + 2 female) expressed each emotion.

7. + EMOTIONAL STIMULI: BODY (VI) Movies of emotional body expression taken from Atkinson (2004). Actors wore uniform dark-grey, tight-fitting clothes and headwear so that all body parts (including face) were covered. 5 different emotions chosen (Anger, Disgust, Happiness, Fear, Sadness). Four actors (2 male + 2 female) expressed each emotion.

8. + EMOTIONAL STIMULI: VOICE (VII) Emotional voice stimuli taken from Montreal Affective Voice set, Belin(2008). Consisted of short (~1s), non linguistic interjections (Ahh) expressing different emotions. 5 different emotions chosen (Anger, Disgust, Happiness, Fear, Sadness) Four actors (2 male + 2 female) expressed each emotion

9. + DESIGN AND PROCEDURE (VIII) Participants performed 6 fMRI runs, each of 36 trials as shown in figure. 3 blocks of 12 trials, differing in type of stimuli, with 2 different clips for each of the 5 emotions. Trials presented in random order, to prevent any prediction bias. After each presentation, participants rated each stimulus on a 3 point scale. (Enhancement of involved brain regions)

10. + DATA ACQUISITION: fMRI (IX) fMRI data were analysed using Multivoxel Pattern Analysis (MVPA): a technique sensitive to fine-grained neural representations. (Haynes & Rees, 2005) Moreover, using a spherical searchlight approach they tested for regions in the brain where local activity patterns contained information about emotion categories (fear, anger, etc.) independent of stimulus modality (body, voice, face). (Kriegeskorte et al., 2006)

11. + RESULTS: BEHAVIOURAL (X) The average rating of the perceived emotions is 2,24 (as show in figure) Differences between perceived intensities of emotions depended on modality (p< 0.001). (Anger > Voice Disgust > Body) THEY EXCLUDED THE POSSIBILITY THAT DIFFERENCES IN PERCEIVED INTENSITY COULD PROVIDE AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION FOR SUPRAMODAL EMOTION-SPECIFIC fMRI RESPONSES. (NONE OF THE CORRELATIONS POSITIVE)

12. + RESULTS: fMRI (XI) TWO CLUSTERS SHOWED SUPRAMODAL EMOTION INFORMATION: rmPFC and left STS Results of a whole-brain searchlight analysis showed clusters with significant emotion-specific activity patterns across modality. Similarity of activity patterns was expressed as a correlation value, with higher correlations indicating higher similarity. rmPFC (p