In facial expression perception, a distributed network is activated according to stimulus context. We proposed that an interaction between brain activation and stimulus context in response to facial expressions could signify a pattern of interactivity across the whole brain network beyond the face processing network. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired for 19 young healthy subjects who were exposed to either emotionally neutral or negative facial expressions. We constructed group-wise functional brain networks for 12 face processing areas [bilateral inferior occipital gyri (IOG), fusiform gyri (FG), superior temporal sulci (STS), amygdalae (AMG), inferior frontal gyri (IFG), and orbitofrontal cortices (OFC)] and for 73 whole brain areas, based on partial correlation of mean activation across subjects. We compared the topological properties of the networks with respect to functional distance-based measures, global and local efficiency, between the two types of face stimulus. In both face processing and whole brain networks, global efficiency was lower and local efficiency was higher for negative faces relative to neutral faces, indicating that network topology differed according to stimulus context. Particularly in the face processing network, emotion-induced changes in network topology were attributable to interactions between core (bilateral IOG, FG, and STS) and extended (bilateral AMG, IFG, and OFC) systems. These results suggest that changes in brain activation patterns in response to emotional face stimuli could be revealed as changes in the topological properties of functional brain networks for the whole brain as well as for face processing areas.
Keywords: Emotional stimulus; Facial expression; Functional brain network; Graph-theoretical analysis; fMRI.