ArticleNeuropsychologia2020
Structural connections support emotional connections: Uncinate Fasciculus microstructure is related to the ability to decode facial emotion expressions.
Article in Neuropsychologia, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Structural connectivity abnormalities in suicidal thoughts and behaviours: a meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Facial Emotion Recognition Ability May Improve in Alzheimer Disease: A Pilot Study.Cognitive and behavioral neurology : official journal of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology · 2026Trial
- Processing of emotional faces has unique functional and cytoarchitectural associations in those with an autism spectrum diagnosis.Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders · 2026Article
- Sex versus Gender Role Endorsement Associations With White Matter Microstructure in South African Adults: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Mapping the Cross-species Brain Connectivity Atlas and Hemispheric Asymmetry of the Temporal Pole in Humans and Macaques.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Article
- Processing of Emotional Faces Has Unique Functional and Cytoarchitectural Associations in those with an Autism Spectrum Diagnosis.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Evidence for an Evolutionary Continuity in Social Dominance: Insights from Nonhuman Primate Tractography.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Theory of Mind in Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 Is Associated With Cortical Gyrification and White Matter Hyperintensities.European journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Uncinate Fasciculus Lesion Burden and Anxiety in Multiple Sclerosis.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Investigating the relationship between cognitive impairment and brain white matter tracts using diffusion tensor imaging in patients with prolactinoma.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2025Article
- Association of Anxiety with Uncinate Fasciculus Lesion Burden in Multiple Sclerosis.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Improving mentalizing deficits in older age with region-specific transcranial direct current stimulation.GeroScience · 2024Article
- White matter tract crossing and bottleneck regions in the fetal brain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- A detailed spatio-temporal atlas of the white matter tracts for the fetal brain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Atypical brain structural connectivity and social cognition in childhood maltreatment and peer victimisation.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Aerobic exercise promotes emotion regulation: a narrative review.Experimental brain research · 2024Review
- Brain structure variation and individual differences in theory of mind among older adults.Aging brain · 2024Article
- Uncinate fasciculus microstructural organisation and emotion recognition in schizophrenia: controlling for hit rate bias.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2024Article
- Links between psychopathological symptoms and cortical thickness in men with severe alcohol use disorder: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging study.Neuropsychopharmacology reports · 2023Article
- Corticolimbic structural connectivity encapsulates real-world emotional reactivity and happiness.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The Uncinate Fasciculus (UF) is an association fibre tract connecting regions in the frontal and anterior temporal lobes. UF disruption is seen in several disorders associated with impaired social behaviour, but its functional role is unclear. Here we set out to test the hypothesis that the UF is important for facial expression processing, an ability fundamental to adaptive social behaviour. In two separate experiments in healthy adults, we used high-angular resolution diffusion-weighted imaging (HARDI) and constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD) tractography to virtually dissect the UF, plus a control tract (the corticospinal tract (CST)), and quantify, via fractional anisotropy (FA), individual differences in tract microstructure. In Experiment 1, participants completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task (RMET), a well-validated assay of facial expression decoding. In Experiment 2, a different set of participants completed the RMET, plus an odd-emotion-out task of facial emotion discrimination. In both experiments, participants also completed a control odd-identity-out facial identity discrimination task. In Experiment 1, FA of the right-, but not the left-hemisphere, UF was significantly correlated with performance on the RMET task, specifically for emotional, but not neutral expressions. UF FA was not significantly correlated with facial identity discrimination performance. In Experiment 2, FA of the right-, but not left-hemisphere, UF was again significantly correlated with performance on emotional items from the RMET, together with performance on the facial emotion discrimination task. Again, no significant association was found between UF FA and facial identity discrimination performance. Our findings highlight the contribution of right-hemisphere UF microstructure to inter-individual variability in the ability to decode facial emotion expressions, and may explain why disruption of this pathway affects social behaviour.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.