An apparent interesting side effect of shooting your face full of rat poison is the loss of the ability to decode the emotional content of sentences that are sad, depressing or filled with anger. From the Newsweek article:
This is the first study suggesting that Botox affects the ability to understand the emotional content of language. “Normally, the brain would be sending signals to the periphery to frown, and the extent of the frown would be sent back to the brain,” UW-Madison professor emeritus of psychology Arthur Glenberg (and Havas’s adviser) said in a statement. “But here, that loop is disrupted, and the intensity of the emotion and of our ability to understand it when embodied in language is disrupted.” Even though the temporal delay is less than a second, says Glenberg, who is now at Arizona State University, “in conversation, people respond to fast, subtle cues about each other’s understanding, intention, and empathy. If you are slightly slower reacting as I tell you about something that made me really angry, that could signal to me that you did not pick up my message.”
This immediately made me think of my son and others on the autistic spectrum. He and others can have issues with facial expressions being appropriate for the emotions they are feeling. Could this study be hitting on some additional wiring issues that people with AS disorders have? Certainly worth a look I would think.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia runs an autism research center. Our family has participated in studies in the past that focused on the brains reaction time to visual and sound cues. They currently are building a study that will focus on how the brain processes facial expressions and social and nonsocial actions such as gestures and other movements. Makes you realize that facial expressions are more than just skin deep.