Dynamic changes in neural circuitry underlying emotional face processing in early life: network re-organization and functional interactions

Children'S Hospital Corporation, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

Navigation of the social world, including recognition of facial expressions, is an essential and complex function that is facilitated by coordinated interactions between brain networks. Faces become a critical part of the human social environment early in life and prior to the onset of language infants depend on their ability to read faces, suggesting that the underlying neural circuitry may be sufficiently developed early in life. Previous studies, predominantly in adults, have shown that a distributed network of brain regions facilitates emotional face processing. However little is known about the organization and functional interactions of these brain regions in early life, a period of rapid and profound changes in the human brain. To address this significant gap in knowledge, Dr. Stamoulis and her collaborators at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School will investigate the neural circuits involved in emotional face processing and will systematically characterize age-related (5 to 36 months) changes in the organization and functional activation of these circuits in response to emotional faces. Longitudinally acquired EEG and simultaneous eye-tracking data from ~400 typically developing infants and novel computational tools developed with the support of a National Science Foundation BRAIN EAGER award will be used for this purpose. Findings from this project will facilitate our understanding of the neural networks involved in processing emotional faces in the developing human brain, and the identification of age-invariant and experience-dependent aspects of these networks. In contrast to a large volume of behavioral studies, there are very limited network-focused investigations of the critical neural circuitry that mediates emotional face processing in early life. It is currently unclear how developing brain networks compensate for incomplete neural maturation to process emotionally salient inputs. The overarching goal of this project is to elucidate the neuronal network substrates of emotional face processing in a large cohort of typically developing infants and correlate them with corresponding behavioral measures. Specifically, this project will identify and distinguish elements of the developing neural circuitry that come on line early in life and are differentially coordinated in response to distinct facial expressions, and will systematically characterize how age-related topological and functional changes in these elements facilitate increasingly hierarchical neural information processing. Novel signal processing and statistical tools will be developed for robust characterization of these developing brain networks. In addition to significantly improving our knowledge of the neural circuitry underlying our ability to recognize and characterize facial expressions early in life, findings from this project may also provide improved insights into the impact of early experiences on neural circuitry and may lead to timely interventions for infants at risk of developmental delays, such as those growing up in stressful environments. Finally, given that network neuroscience is a relatively new aspect of research in the field, computational tools and approaches developed as part of this project may have a broader educational impact and may substantially contribute to the scientific preparation of next-generation cognitive neuroscientists for increasingly sophisticated investigations of brain function.