New Publication: How Face and Fear Processing Are Altered in Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy

We are pleased to announce a new publication investigating the neural basis of altered facial emotion perception in Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME). Using fMRI and Dynamic Causal Modelling, the study examined effective connectivity within the bilateral fusiform face area-amygdala network during fear processing. Compared to healthy controls, individuals with JME showed pronounced alterations in the task-independent endogenous network architecture, particularly involving enhanced inhibitory self-connections of the right amygdala. The findings also point to abnormal interhemispheric amygdala transfer under fear modulation and associations with clinical epilepsy characteristics. Overall, this work provides first evidence that disrupted FFA-amygdala connectivity may contribute to reduced sensitivity to emotional facial cues in JME.

👉 Read the paper here