Cerebellum and processing of negative facial emotions: Cerebellar transcranial DC stimulation specifically enhances the emotional recognition of facial anger and sadness

Abstract

Some evidence suggests that the cerebellum participates in the complex network processing emotional facial expression. To evaluate the role of the cerebellum in recognising facial expressions we delivered transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. A facial emotion recognition task was administered to 21 healthy subjects before and after cerebellar tDCS; we also tested subjects with a visual attention task and a visual analogue scale (VAS) for mood. Anodal and cathodal cerebellar tDCS both significantly enhanced sensory processing in response to negative facial expressions (anodal tDCS, p=.0021; cathodal tDCS, p=.018), but left positive emotion and neutral facial expressions unchanged (p>.05). tDCS over the right prefrontal cortex left facial expressions of both negative and positive emotion unchanged. These findings suggest that the cerebellum is specifically involved in processing facial expressions of negative emotion.

Keywords:

• Cerebellum
• Cerebellar dysfunction
• Prefrontal cortex
• Emotion
• Facial emotion recognition
• Emotional disturbances
• tDCS

Acknowledgements

Roberta Ferrucci and Alberto Priori are stake holders of Newronika s.r.l., a spin-off company of the Fondazione IRCCS Cà Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico of Milan and of the Università degli Studi di Milano.