Decoding emotional prosody: a unified brain network integrating gender and task type effect

Emotional prosody processing is vital for social communication. Despite numerous neuroimaging studies exploring emotional prosody, results remain inconsistent across studies, and the factors influencing these inconsistencies are unclear. Here, we identified a unified brain network for emotional prosody processing using activation network mapping. We evaluated how gender and task type influence this network. Results showed broader activation networks in females compared to males, regardless of the emotional prosody type. Moreover, the comparison of task type revealed stage processing mode of emotional prosody. Additionally, analyses link emotional prosody to specific receptors/transporters (\(\:{5HT}_{1A}\), \(\:{CB}_{1}\), \(\:{mGluR}_{5}\), and \(\:NET\)) and physiological processes such as synapse extension, energy metabolism, active transmembrane transport, along with diseases like autistic disorder, Alzheimer's disease, and general disease progression. In conclusion, these findings underscore the importance of considering gender and task type effects on emotional processing research and provide a deeper understanding of the complex neural mechanisms underlying emotional prosody.