Early modulations of neural oscillations during processing of emotional body language

Abstract Processing of threat-related emotional body language (EBL) has been shown to engage sensorimotor cortical areas very early and induce freezing in the observers’ motor system, particularly when observing fearful EBL. We hypothesized that sensory vigilance induced by aversive contents may be mechanism which processing EBL enhance inhibition. To test this hypothesis, we used high-density electroencephalography (hd-EEG) healthy humans while they observed stimuli involving neutral expressions. capture brain response, focused on P100 fronto-central event-related potentials (ERPs) desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) mu-alpha (8–13Hz) lower beta (13–20Hz) bands over primary (M1) somatosensory (S1) cortices. Source-level ERP ERD/ERD analyses were conducted using eLORETA. analysis showed higher amplitudes premotor channels for ‘Neutral’ compared ‘Fear’. ERD/ERS increased desynchronization band M1 ‘Neutral’, opposite was found S1. Source-space reconstruction significant differences between conditions mainly retrievable band. These findings provide high-temporal resolution evidence seeing induces activation areas, turn suppress activity. highlight dynamics within observer’s system hint a supporting during Research Category Technology Methods Basic Research: 15. Electroencephalography (EEG) Keywords: Emotions, Emotional Body Language, EEG, Fear