Beauty in a smile: the role of medial orbitofrontal cortex in facial attractiveness

The attractiveness of a face is a highly salient social signal, influencing mate choice and other social judgements. In this study, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain regions that respond to attractive faces which manifested either a neutral or mi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuropsychologia 2003, Vol.41 (2), p.147-155
Main Authors: O’Doherty, J, Winston, J, Critchley, H, Perrett, D, Burt, D.M, Dolan, R.J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Beauty
Brain Mapping
Face expression
Facial attractiveness
Facial Expression
Female
fMRI
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Orbitofrontal cortex
Reward
Sex Factors
Smiling - physiology
Social Behavior
Social Perception
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:The attractiveness of a face is a highly salient social signal, influencing mate choice and other social judgements. In this study, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain regions that respond to attractive faces which manifested either a neutral or mildly happy face expression. Attractive faces produced activation of medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a region involved in representing stimulus-reward value. Responses in this region were further enhanced by a smiling facial expression, suggesting that the reward value of an attractive face as indexed by medial OFC activity is modulated by a perceiver directed smile.
ISSN:0028-3932
1873-3514
DOI:10.1016/S0028-3932(02)00145-8