Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex disrupts nonconscious facial mimicry

•  When exposed to emotional facial expressions, people nonconsciously mimic the expression (Dimberg & Petterson, 2000; Dimberg et al., 2000).

•  Muscle groups associated with the production of a given expression become more active when viewing that expression compared to other facial expressions (i.e., greater activity of zygomaticus major when viewing happy expressions compared to angry; greater activity of corrugator supercilli when viewing angry expressions compared to happy) (Dimberg & Petterson, 2000; Dimberg et al., 2000).

•  This nonconscious facial mimicry may contribute to the ability to recognize, understand, and empathize with anothers’ emotions and may contribute to the pervasive impairments in social and emotional functioning in individuals with ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) damage (e.g., Anderson et al., 2006).

•  We hypothesized that vmPFC damage would impair nonconscious facial mimicry and used facial EMG to record muscle activity as vmPFC and matched healthy participants viewed emotional facial expressions.