NatMEG lecture: MEG dynamics of (social) facial signal processing, by Nathalie George

Nathalie George is scientific head of the MEG-EEG Centre at the ICM, Paris, France. In this lecture she explains her MEG research on facial processing in social contexts using the state-of-the-art techniques, such as reconstructing neural activity from the amygdala. Faces are very rich social stimuli that convey paramount information on the identity, the direction of attention, and the emotion of others. There has been increasing interest in the dynamics of the processing of faces and of social signals conveyed by faces (gaze, emotional expression) over the recent years. I will here review the recent findings in this domain, which are based on neuromagnetic imaging methods. These findings emphasize the early neural coding of gaze direction and social attention, the dynamics of the integration of gaze and emotion cues, and the impact of these cues on the processing of surrounding objects, highlighting the exquisite sensitivity of the human brain to social signals conveyed by faces.