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Kveraga, Kestutis

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Kveraga

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Kestutis

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Kveraga, Kestutis

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2017 - 20183

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Author's Publications: search.filters.isAuthorOfPublication.d05ef095-55b6-4705-9980-631ae64c18de

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    Neurodynamics and connectivity during facial fear perception: The role of threat exposure and signal congruity
    (Nature Publishing Group UK, 2018) Cushing, Cody A.; Im, Hee Yeon; Adams, Reginald B.; Ward, Noreen; Albohn, Daniel N.; Steiner, Troy G.; Kveraga, Kestutis
    Fearful faces convey threat cues whose meaning is contextualized by eye gaze: While averted gaze is congruent with facial fear (both signal avoidance), direct gaze (an approach signal) is incongruent with it. We have previously shown using fMRI that the amygdala is engaged more strongly by fear with averted gaze during brief exposures. However, the amygdala also responds more to fear with direct gaze during longer exposures. Here we examined previously unexplored brain oscillatory responses to characterize the neurodynamics and connectivity during brief (~250 ms) and longer (~883 ms) exposures of fearful faces with direct or averted eye gaze. We performed two experiments: one replicating the exposure time by gaze direction interaction in fMRI (N = 23), and another where we confirmed greater early phase locking to averted-gaze fear (congruent threat signal) with MEG (N = 60) in a network of face processing regions, regardless of exposure duration. Phase locking to direct-gaze fear (incongruent threat signal) then increased significantly for brief exposures at ~350 ms, and at ~700 ms for longer exposures. Our results characterize the stages of congruent and incongruent facial threat signal processing and show that stimulus exposure strongly affects the onset and duration of these stages.
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    Internal valence modulates the speed of object recognition
    (Nature Publishing Group UK, 2017) Panichello, Matthew F.; Kveraga, Kestutis; Chaumon, Maximilien; Bar, Moshe; Barrett, Lisa Feldman
    Brain regions that process affect are strongly connected with visual regions, but the functional consequences of this structural organization have been relatively unexplored. How does the momentary affect of an observer influence perception? We induced either pleasant or unpleasant affect in participants and then recorded their neural activity using magnetoencephalography while they completed an object recognition task. We hypothesized, and found, that affect influenced the speed of object recognition by modulating the speed and amplitude of evoked responses in occipitotemporal cortex and regions important for representing affect. Furthermore, affect modulated functional interactions between affective and perceptual regions early during perceptual processing. These findings indicate that affect can serve as an important contextual influence on object recognition processes.
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    Observer’s anxiety facilitates magnocellular processing of clear facial threat cues, but impairs parvocellular processing of ambiguous facial threat cues
    (Nature Publishing Group UK, 2017) Im, Hee Yeon; Adams, Reginald B.; Boshyan, Jasmine; Ward, Noreen; Cushing, Cody A.; Kveraga, Kestutis
    Facial expression and eye gaze provide a shared signal about threats. While a fear expression with averted gaze clearly points to the source of threat, direct-gaze fear renders the source of threat ambiguous. Separable routes have been proposed to mediate these processes, with preferential attunement of the magnocellular (M) pathway to clear threat, and of the parvocellular (P) pathway to threat ambiguity. Here we investigated how observers’ trait anxiety modulates M- and P-pathway processing of clear and ambiguous threat cues. We scanned subjects (N = 108) widely ranging in trait anxiety while they viewed fearful or neutral faces with averted or directed gaze, with the luminance and color of face stimuli calibrated to selectively engage M- or P-pathways. Higher anxiety facilitated processing of clear threat projected to M-pathway, but impaired perception of ambiguous threat projected to P-pathway. Increased right amygdala reactivity was associated with higher anxiety for M-biased averted-gaze fear, while increased left amygdala reactivity was associated with higher anxiety for P-biased, direct-gaze fear. This lateralization was more pronounced with higher anxiety. Our findings suggest that trait anxiety differentially affects perception of clear (averted-gaze fear) and ambiguous (direct-gaze fear) facial threat cues via selective engagement of M and P pathways and lateralized amygdala reactivity.