ENH

Author: Merluin

_bibliography/papers.bib

@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ @article{Tam2017
    altmetric=true,
    google_scholar_id={A9ZUw2kZHiyIJ}
 }
+
 @article{Quettier2021,
    abstract = {Several previous studies have interfered with the observer’s facial mimicry during a variety of facial expression recognition tasks providing evidence in favor of the role of facial mimicry and sensorimotor activity in emotion processing. In this theoretical context, a particularly intriguing facet has been neglected, namely whether blocking facial mimicry modulates conscious perception of facial expressions of emotions. To address this issue, we used a binocular rivalry paradigm, in which two dissimilar stimuli presented to the two eyes alternatingly dominate conscious perception. On each trial, female participants (N = 32) were exposed to a rivalrous pair of a neutral and a happy expression of the same individual through anaglyph glasses in two conditions: in one, they could freely use their facial mimicry, in the other they had to keep a chopstick between their lips, constraining the mobility of the zygomatic muscle and producing ‘noise’ for sensorimotor simulation. We found that blocking facial mimicry affected the perceptual dominance in terms of cumulative time favoring neutral faces, but it did not change the time before the first dominance was established. Taken together, our results open a door to future investigation of the intersection between sensorimotor simulation models and conscious perception of emotional facial expressions.},
    author = {Thomas Quettier and Filippo Gambarota and Naotsugu Tsuchiya and Paola Sessa},
@@ -46,6 +47,7 @@ @article{Quettier2021
    google_scholar_id={AB8dsZ25Z_IEJ},
    preview={faces.gif}
 }
+
 @article{Quettier2023,
    abstract = {Moebius syndrome (MBS) is characterized by the congenital absence or underdevelopment of cranial nerves VII and VI, leading to facial palsy and impaired lateral eye movements. As a result, MBS individuals cannot produce facial expressions and did not develop motor programs for facial expressions. In the latest model of sensorimotor simulation, an iterative communication between somatosensory, motor/premotor cortices, and visual regions has been proposed, which should allow more efficient discriminations among subtle facial expressions. Accordingly, individuals with congenital facial motor disability, specifically with MBS, should exhibit atypical communication within this network. Here, we aimed to test this facet of the sensorimotor simulation models. We estimated the functional connectivity between the visual cortices for face processing and the sensorimotor cortices in healthy and MBS individuals. To this aim, we studied the strength of beta band functional connectivity between these two systems using high-density EEG, combined with a change detection task with facial expressions (and a control condition involving non-face stimuli). The results supported our hypothesis such that when discriminating subtle facial expressions, participants affected by congenital facial palsy (compared to healthy controls) showed reduced connectivity strength between sensorimotor regions and visual regions for face processing. This effect was absent for the condition with non-face stimuli. These findings support sensorimotor simulation models and the communication between sensorimotor and visual areas during subtle facial expression processing.},
    author = {Thomas Quettier and Antonio Maffei and Filippo Gambarota and Pier Francesco Ferrari and Paola Sessa},
@@ -65,6 +67,7 @@ @article{Quettier2023
    google_scholar_id={A9ZUw2kZHiyIJ},
    preview={neuro.gif}
 }
+
 @article{Quettier2023,
    abstract = {Contents of consciousness change over time. However, the study of dynamics in consciousness has been largely neglected. Aru and Bachmann have recently brought to the attention of scientists dealing with consciousness the relevance of making inquiries about its temporal evolution. Importantly, they also pointed out several experimental questions as guidelines for researchers interested in studying the temporal evolution of consciousness, including the phases of formation and dissolution of content. They also suggested that these two phases could be characterized by asymmetric inertia. The main objective of the present investigation was to approximate the dynamics of these two phases in the context of conscious face perception. To this aim, we tested the time course of content transitions during a binocular rivalry task using face stimuli and asked participants to map their subjective experience of transitions from one content to the other through a joystick. We then computed metrics of joystick velocity linked to content transitions as proxies of the formation and dissolution phases. We found a general phase effect such that the formation phase was slower than the dissolution phase. Furthermore, we observed an effect specific to happy facial expressions, such that their contents were slower to form and dissolve than that of neutral expressions. We further propose to include a third phase of stabilization of conscious content between formation and dissolution.},
    author = {Thomas Quettier and Nicolò Di Lello and Naotsugu Tsuchiya and Paola Sessa},
@@ -84,6 +87,7 @@ @article{Quettier2023
    google_scholar_id={Ab-3W93mUa8QJ},
    preview={nosferatu.gif}
 }
+
 @article{Quettier2024,
    abstract = {Embodied cognition, a theoretical framework that emphasises the influence of the body and sensorimotor processes on cognition (Barsalou, 2008; Wilson, 2002), has garnered significant attention in t...},
    author = {Thomas Quettier and Elena Moro and Naotsugu Tsuchiya and Paola Sessa},
@@ -106,6 +110,7 @@ @article{Quettier2024
    google_scholar_id={Ae6H9LV4ddZIJ},
    preview={facerivalry.gif}
 }
+
 @article{Quettier2024,
    abstract = {Efficient inhibitory control in the context of prepotent actions is vital. However, such action inhibition may be profoundly influenced by affective states. Interestingly, research indicates that action control can be either impaired or improved by emotional stimuli. Thus, a great deal of confusion surrounds our knowledge of the complex dynamics subtending emotions and action control. Here, we aimed to investigate whether negative stimuli, even when non-consciously presented and task-irrelevant, can affect action control relative to neutral stimuli. Additionally, we tested whether individual differences in intracortical excitability may predict action control capabilities. To address these issues, we asked participants to complete a modified version of the Stop Signal Task (SST) in which fearful or neutral stimuli were subliminally presented before the go signals as primes. Moreover, we assessed participants’ resting-state corticospinal excitability, short intracortical inhibition (SICI), and intracortical facilitation (ICF). Results demonstrated better action control capabilities when fearful stimuli were subliminally presented and interindividual SICI predicted stronger action inhibition capabilities. Taken together, these results shed new light on the intricate dynamics between action, consciousness, and motor control, suggesting that intracortical measures can be used as potential biomarkers of reduced motor inhibition in research and clinical settings.},
    author = {Thomas Quettier and Giuseppe Ippolito and Lorenzo Però and Pasquale Cardellicchio and Simone Battaglia and Sara Borgomaneri},
@@ -124,6 +129,7 @@ @article{Quettier2024
    google_scholar_id={ACIkVHnwxC1UJ},
    preview={space.gif}
 }
+
 @article{Ippolito2025,
    abstract = {Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a widely used tool in the field of clinical and cognitive neuroscience. To exploit its excellent temporal properties, TMS usually relies on triggerbox devices, which temporize the delivery of magnetic pulses according to the paradigm requirements. However, a main limitation of most of the widely used triggerbox devices is that they rely solely on the experimental computer processor, which might add temporal uncertainty in delivering the TMS pulse when the computer’s resources are drained by other experimental devices or by task execution itself, especially during repetitive TMS or dual-coil protocols. We aimed at developing a low-cost and easily reproducible triggerbox device which could overcome these limitations by relying on an external processor to handle the timing precision. We used an Arduino Uno R4 Minima to build Silicon Spike, a low-cost ($60) triggerbox device. We tested the device’s precision in delivering the TMS pulses under different working load conditions, and the impact over time. All of the tests were ecological, delivering real TMS pulses during dual-coil, repetitive, and patterned TMS protocols. We obtained extremely high precision (< 0.022 ms) in all of the tests. This means that, for smaller or longer latencies, the error remains negligible for TMS studies. Thus, the Silicon Spike device demonstrated microsecond precision in handling the TMS pulse delivery, establishing itself as a simple and yet precise device. We freely provide the source code and the hardware schematics, allowing anyone to reproduce our work.},
    author = {Giuseppe Ippolito and Thomas Quettier and Sara Borgomaneri and Vincenzo Romei},
@@ -146,6 +152,7 @@ @article{Ippolito2025
    google_scholar_id={AqsPzWGjY08wJ},
    preview={square.gif}
 }
+
 @article{Costa2025,
    abstract = {The role of the sensorimotor cortices in processing facial expressions remains a topic of debate. While substantial evidence supports their involvement via simulation and mirroring mechanisms, an alternative view argues that sensorimotor activation reflects a general emotional tuning to affective content. To clarify these competing hypotheses, we examined sensorimotor responses to emotional (disgusting) scenes—which evoke affect without requiring simulation—and emotional (disgusted) facial expressions. In one-third of trials, gentle tactile stimulation was applied to the left levator labii superioris muscle at two time points to elicit somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs). A subtraction approach was used to isolate pure somatosensory activity by removing visual-only responses (VEP) from combined visual-tactile responses (SEP+VEP), with a blank-screen condition as an additional baseline. We observed a small but significant reduction in P300 SEP amplitude at right central, centro-frontal, and centro-parietal electrodes when tactile stimulation followed disgusted facial expressions compared to disgusting scenes. This effect was independent of subjective ratings of arousal and valence. Importantly, only SEPs following facial expressions differed significantly from those following tactile stimulation alone, suggesting a specific modulation by facial expression processing. Despite the relatively small amplitude of the observed effects, and the somewhat preliminary nature of the results, these findings provide novel evidence that facial expressions engage the sensorimotor system in a specific and privileged manner, consistent with the simulation hypothesis.},
    author = {Sara Costa and Arianna Schiano Lomoriello and Thomas Quettier and Fausto Caruana and Pier Francesco Ferrari and Paola Sessa},
@@ -165,6 +172,7 @@ @article{Costa2025
    google_scholar_id={AMGelBqfY4OAJ},
    preview={eeg.gif}
 }
+
 @article{Borgomaneri2025,
    abstract = {Fearful body expressions convey critical information that is rapidly and preferentially processed, facilitating swift motor reactions to potential dangers. Consistent evidence has shown that even the subliminal presentation of fear-related expressions can impact visual processing and autonomic responses, increasing sensory vigilance for monitoring potential threats. However, it remains unclear whether the presentation of non-visible emotional bodies modulates corticospinal excitability (CSE) in the observer. To investigate this, we asked 22 healthy participants to perform a sex discrimination task involving neutral target body postures, preceded by the brief subliminal presentation of fearful, happy, or neutral body postures. CSE was tested using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) at early time points (70, 90, and 110 ms) after target stimulus onset. Results showed a significant CSE reduction in the dominant hemisphere for subliminal fearful primes compared to happy and neutral primes. This CSE suppression was independent of the time of stimulation, participants’ subjective or objective awareness, metacognitive sensitivity, or personality traits. Our findings highlight an early automatic activation of the motor system in response to subliminal fearful stimuli, supporting the view that fearful expressions, even when not consciously perceived, activate basic survival mechanisms for monitoring and preparing fast motor responses to potential threats.},
    author = {Sara Borgomaneri and Thomas Quettier and Marianna Ambrosecchia and Simone Battaglia and Marco Tamietto and Alessio Avenanti},
@@ -186,6 +194,7 @@ @article{Borgomaneri2025
    google_scholar_id={AMhuT1D7kw7kJ},
    preview={anat.gif}
 }
+
 @article{Per2025,
    abstract = {Reactive inhibition is crucial for preventing inappropriate actions, and impairments in this ability are common in various disorders, with the underlying neural mechanisms poorly understood. To explore the neural dynamics of such an ability, we used a novel transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) protocol, cortico–cortical paired associative stimulation (ccPAS), to induce Hebbian spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). Our goal was to investigate the functional relevance of key brain regions in the action inhibition network (AIN). Healthy participants underwent ccPAS targeting functional connectivity between AIN regions: pre/supplementary motor area (preSMA/SMA) to the left motor cortex (lM1), right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) to lM1, or right M1 (rM1) to lM1. Participants completed a stop signal task (SST) before and after ccPAS stimulation. Motor evoked potentials (MEP) were recorded during ccPAS to assess network plasticity, and resting motor threshold (rMT) was measured for global motor excitability. Reactive inhibition improved selectively in the preSMA/SMA-lM1 group, with MEPs increasing after preSMA/SMA-lM1 and rM1-lM1 stimulation, suggesting facilitatory modulations. rMT correlated with behavioral improvement in the preSMA/SMA group. These findings demonstrate that ccPAS improved reactive inhibition, enhancing plasticity between preSMA/SMA and lM1, providing insights into the AIN's functional mechanism.},
    author = {Lorenzo Però and Nicolò Arlati and Laura Lenzi and Thomas Quettier and Simone Battaglia and Sara Borgomaneri},