Fear Fosters Flight: a Mechanism for Fear Contagion when Perceiving Emotion Expressed by a Whole Body

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2004 Nov 18

PMID 15546983

Citations 135

Authors

Beatrice de Gelder

Josh Snyder

Doug Greve

George Gerard

Nouchine Hadjikhani

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Darwin regarded emotions as predispositions to act adaptively, thereby suggesting that characteristic body movements are associated with each emotional state. To this date, investigations of emotional cognition have predominantly concentrated on processes associated with viewing facial expressions. However, expressive body movements may be just as important for understanding the neurobiology of emotional behavior. Here, we used functional MRI to clarify how the brain recognizes happiness or fear expressed by a whole body. Our results indicate that observing fearful body expressions produces increased activity in brain areas narrowly associated with emotional processes and that this emotion-related activity occurs together with activation of areas linked with representation of action and movement. The mechanism of fear contagion hereby suggested may automatically prepare the brain for action.

Citing Articles

Unveiling the Truth in Pain: Neural and Behavioral Distinctions Between Genuine and Deceptive Pain.

Zanelli V, Lui F, Casadio C, Ricci F, Carpentiero O, Ballotta D Brain Sci. 2025; 15(2).

PMID: 40002518 PMC: 11852981. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci15020185.

Temporal Lobectomy Evidence for the Role of the Amygdala in Early Emotional Face and Body Processing.

Moses E, Scambler J, Taubert J, Lo A, Thompson K, de Gelder B eNeuro. 2025; 12(2).

PMID: 39890458 PMC: 11839276. DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0114-24.2024.

Maintenance of Bodily Expressions Modulates Functional Connectivity Between Prefrontal Cortex and Extrastriate Body Area During Working Memory Processing.

Ren J, Zhang M, Liu S, He W, Luo W Brain Sci. 2025; 14(12.

PMID: 39766371 PMC: 11674776. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14121172.

Stimulation-based compassion mapping to assess risk of insular resection for surgical epilepsy management: illustrative case.

Hullett P, Lin A, Greicius Q, Knowlton R, Shih T, Rao V J Neurosurg Case Lessons. 2024; 8(24).

PMID: 39652851 PMC: 11633014. DOI: 10.3171/CASE24339.

Social contagion of pain and fear results in opposite social behaviors in rodents: meta- analysis of experimental studies.

Du R, Yu Y, Wang X, Lu G, Chen J Front Behav Neurosci. 2024; 18:1478456.

PMID: 39534728 PMC: 11555602. DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1478456.

References

Decety J, Chaminade T, Grezes J, Meltzoff A . A PET exploration of the neural mechanisms involved in reciprocal imitation. Neuroimage. 2002; 15(1):265-72. DOI: 10.1006/nimg.2001.0938. View

Murata A, Gallese V, Luppino G, Kaseda M, Sakata H . Selectivity for the shape, size, and orientation of objects for grasping in neurons of monkey parietal area AIP. J Neurophysiol. 2000; 83(5):2580-601. DOI: 10.1152/jn.2000.83.5.2580. View

Morris J, Friston K, Buchel C, Frith C, Young A, Calder A . A neuromodulatory role for the human amygdala in processing emotional facial expressions. Brain. 1998; 121 ( Pt 1):47-57. DOI: 10.1093/brain/121.1.47. View

Adolphs R, Tranel D . Amygdala damage impairs emotion recognition from scenes only when they contain facial expressions. Neuropsychologia. 2003; 41(10):1281-9. DOI: 10.1016/s0028-3932(03)00064-2. View

Dimberg U . Facial reactions to facial expressions. Psychophysiology. 1982; 19(6):643-7. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1982.tb02516.x. View

De Gelder B, Vroomen J, Pourtois G, Weiskrantz L . Non-conscious recognition of affect in the absence of striate cortex. Neuroreport. 2000; 10(18):3759-63. DOI: 10.1097/00001756-199912160-00007. View

Carr L, Iacoboni M, Dubeau M, Mazziotta J, Lenzi G . Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: a relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003; 100(9):5497-502. PMC: 154373. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0935845100. View

Grossman E, Blake R . Brain Areas Active during Visual Perception of Biological Motion. Neuron. 2002; 35(6):1167-75. DOI: 10.1016/s0896-6273(02)00897-8. View

Decety , GREZES . Neural mechanisms subserving the perception of human actions. Trends Cogn Sci. 1999; 3(5):172-178. DOI: 10.1016/s1364-6613(99)01312-1. View

10.

Adolphs R . Recognizing emotion from facial expressions: psychological and neurological mechanisms. Behav Cogn Neurosci Rev. 2007; 1(1):21-62. DOI: 10.1177/1534582302001001003. View

11.

Dolan R . Emotion, cognition, and behavior. Science. 2002; 298(5596):1191-4. DOI: 10.1126/science.1076358. View

12.

Morris J, Ohman A, Dolan R . A subcortical pathway to the right amygdala mediating "unseen" fear. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999; 96(4):1680-5. PMC: 15559. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.96.4.1680. View

13.

Fischl B, Sereno M, Dale A . Cortical surface-based analysis. II: Inflation, flattening, and a surface-based coordinate system. Neuroimage. 1999; 9(2):195-207. DOI: 10.1006/nimg.1998.0396. View

14.

Schultz W . Neural coding of basic reward terms of animal learning theory, game theory, microeconomics and behavioural ecology. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2004; 14(2):139-47. DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2004.03.017. View

15.

Adolphs R . Neural systems for recognizing emotion. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2002; 12(2):169-77. DOI: 10.1016/s0959-4388(02)00301-x. View

16.

Bonda E, Petrides M, Ostry D, Evans A . Specific involvement of human parietal systems and the amygdala in the perception of biological motion. J Neurosci. 1996; 16(11):3737-44. PMC: 6578830. View

17.

OCraven K, Kanwisher N . Mental imagery of faces and places activates corresponding stiimulus-specific brain regions. J Cogn Neurosci. 2001; 12(6):1013-23. DOI: 10.1162/08989290051137549. View

18.

Buccino G, Binkofski F, Fink G, Fadiga L, Fogassi L, Gallese V . Action observation activates premotor and parietal areas in a somatotopic manner: an fMRI study. Eur J Neurosci. 2001; 13(2):400-4. View

19.

LeDoux J . Brain mechanisms of emotion and emotional learning. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 1992; 2(2):191-7. DOI: 10.1016/0959-4388(92)90011-9. View

20.

Pessoa L, Ungerleider L . Neuroimaging studies of attention and the processing of emotion-laden stimuli. Prog Brain Res. 2003; 144:171-82. DOI: 10.1016/S0079-6123(03)14412-3. View