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  • Review Article
  • Published:

Tuning the developing brain to social signals of emotions

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 10, pages 37–47 (2009)Cite this article

Key Points

  • Most humans develop a capacity to recognize the emotional signals of different facial expressions. This capacity is mediated by a brain network that involves emotion-related brain circuits (including the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex) and higher-level visual representation areas (the fusiform gyrus and the superior temporal sulcus).

  • Human infants start to discriminate facial expressions by the second half of their first year. At approximately the same age, they begin to exhibit adult-like attentional bias towards certain salient facial expressions (such as expressions of fear), as well as enhanced vision- and attention-related event-related brain potentials to fearful facial expressions.

  • These findings, together with experimental lesion and anatomical tracing studies in other species, suggest that the key components of the emotion-processing network and their interconnections are established and become functional early in postnatal life.

  • Developmental studies in humans and monkeys have further shown that face-processing mechanisms are initially broadly tuned (activated by a broad range of stimuli, such as human and monkey faces) but narrow and become more specialized for specific types of perceptual discriminations with experience (discrimination of information in human faces).

  • Collectively, these data suggest that the acquisition of representations of facial expressions may reflect the functional emergence of an experience-expectant mechanism by the second half of the first year and rapid experience-driven attunement of this mechanism to species-typical facial expressions.

  • Specifically, components of the emotion-processing network (such as the amygdala) may be to a limited extent prepared for processing and storing information about biologically salient cues, but they require exposure to facial expressions at a specific developmental time point ('expected experience') in order to be refined and develop towards more mature forms.

  • Although the basic organization of the emotion-recognition networks is specified by an experience-expectant neural circuitry that emerges during a sensitive period, representations of facial expressions are likely to be continually fine-tuned by individual-specific experiences (reflecting the experience-dependent development of facial-expression processing).

  • Genetically driven differences in the reactivity of emotion-related brain circuits (for example, polymorphisms that affect serotonin transmission and amygdala reactivity) might, in combination with environmental factors (such as exposure to negative emotions), bias the developmental process towards heightened sensitivity to signals of certain negative emotions.

Abstract

Humans in different cultures develop a similar capacity to recognize the emotional signals of diverse facial expressions. This capacity is mediated by a brain network that involves emotion-related brain circuits and higher-level visual-representation areas. Recent studies suggest that the key components of this network begin to emerge early in life. The studies also suggest that initial biases in emotion-related brain circuits and the early coupling of these circuits and cortical perceptual areas provide a foundation for a rapid acquisition of representations of those facial features that denote specific emotions.

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Figure 1: An emotion-processing network in the brain.
Figure 2: Development of facial-emotion discrimination in infancy.
Figure 3: Emotional influences on attention and perception in infants.
Figure 4: A proposed model of the development of emotion-recognition mechanisms.

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Acknowledgements

C.A.N. gratefully acknowledges support from the US National Institutes of Health (MH078829) and the Richard David Scott endowment; J.M.L. acknowledges financial support from the Academy of Finland (grant number 1115536). The authors thank J. Kagan for his comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

    Jukka M. Leppänen

  2. Children's Hospital Boston/Harvard Medical School, Developmental Medicine Center Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, 1 Autumn Street, Office AU621, Mailbox 713, Boston, 021155365, Massachusetts, USA

    Charles A. Nelson

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Glossary

Universal facial expressions

A limited set of emotional facial expressions that seem to be recognized universally (by members of different cultures).

Magnocellular pathway

A system of vision-responsive cells that are characterized by large axons and the rapid transmission of nerve impulses.

Near-infra-red spectroscopy

A technique used for measuring changes in haemoglobin concentrations and oxygenation levels that can be used to study changes in brain activity in localized cortical regions.

Experience-expectant mechanisms

Evolved neural mechanisms and plasticity for processing and storing information that is expected to be common to all members of the species; for example, patterned light, faces, speech and language.

Experience-dependent mechanisms

Neural mechanisms and plasticity for processing information that is unique to the individual; for example, individual differences in processing cognitive, linguistic or social challenges. In the cognitive sphere, for example, learning and memory reflect an experience-dependent process.

Perceptual narrowing

A developmental process in which discrimination of frequently encountered stimulus features is maintained and improved whereas discrimination of less frequently encountered stimulus features is diminished or lost; for example, the gradual loss of the ability to discriminate non-native speech contrasts while retaining the ability to discriminate native speech contrasts.

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Leppänen, J., Nelson, C. Tuning the developing brain to social signals of emotions. Nat Rev Neurosci 10, 37–47 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2554

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