Facial sexual feature processing revealed by spatiotemparal pattern of event-related potentials
10.3760/cma.j.issn.1671-8925.2008.07.019
- VernacularTitle:面孔性别信息加工的事件相关电位时空模式研究
- Author:
Yi-Feng LUO
1
;
Jia YIN
;
Tian-Ming L(U)
;
Shu ZHOU
Author Information
1. 南方医科大学南方医院
- Keywords:
Face;
Sexual features;
Spatiotempural pattern of event-related potentials
- From:
Chinese Journal of Neuromedicine
2008;7(7):717-720
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
-
Abstract:
Objective To investigate the process of electrical activities when human brain deals with the facial sexual information. Methods Forty healthy college students in March 2005 were selected from Southern Medical University. All subjects participating in the experiment vohmtarily were right-handed with normal or corrected sight and never suffered from family history of mental disorder. 360 pictures of real human face (balf females and half males) strange to all participants, were used as the stimulus presented once one by one in randomized order on the screen with a stimulus duration of 800 ms and a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 1200 ms. Half subjects were asked to press the left button of a game-pad immediately after female face presentation and the right for male, the other half reversed. Event-related electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded by 19 channels of international 10-20 system with linked earlobes as reference. EEG epochs from 100 ms before to 800 ms after stimulus were amplified by means of an ERPs system developed in our lab, digitized with sampling frequency of 1000 Hz, bandwidth of [0.1, 30] Hz and a notch of 50 Hz. Electrode impedance was less than 5 kΩ. Trial contaminated with ocular, muscular or any other type of artifacts were inspected visually and rejected. Each 60 stimuli of the same gender faces worked as an overlaying unit (the real overlay number was about 45-50 with bad epochs rejected). Three female and 3 male subjects were excluded owing to the bad ERP record quality and thus 34x6 epochs came from the rest ones. Results (1) The possible difference trend (but P>0.05) between male and female facial stimuli appeared at the frontal area in 40-100 ms after stimuli; (2) The significant difference between male and female appeared at the occipital in 140-160 ms after stimuli (P<0.05); (3) The significant difference between male and female appeared at the large frontal and occipital area in 200-260 ms after stimuli (P<0.05); (4) The significant difference between male and female appeared at the large central parietal in 280-300 ms after stimuli (P<0.05); (5) The significant difference or trend between male and female appeared at several areas in different time after 360 ms. Conclusion In different stage, different brain areas are activated for the facial sexual feature processing. Thus, our brain works as a network.
