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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Brain Health and Clinical Neuroscience
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1333733
This article is part of the Research Topic Stimulating the Social Brain View all articles

Attraction is Altered via Modulation of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex Without Explicit Knowledge

Provisionally accepted
Samantha Zorns Samantha Zorns Claudia Sierzputowski Claudia Sierzputowski Molly Skowron Molly Skowron Anthony Minervini Anthony Minervini Adriana Lavarco Adriana Lavarco Sydney Ash Sydney Ash Matthew Pardillo Matthew Pardillo Julian P. Keenan Julian P. Keenan *
  • Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Previous studies have demonstrated that brain stimulation can alter an individual’s physical appearance via dysregulation of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MPFC). Here we attempted to determine if individuals who receive rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) delivered to the MPFC were rated more attractive by others. It has been previously reported that 1Hz (Inhibitory) TMS can alter one’s facial expressions such that frontal cortex inhibition can increase expressiveness. These altercations, detected by external observation, remain below the level of awareness in the subject themselves. In Phase I, subjects (N=10) who received MPFC rTMS and had their photographs taken after each of 5 stimulation conditions in addition to making self-ratings across a number of variables including attractiveness. In Phase II, participants (N=430) rated 5 pictures of each of the Phase 1 individuals on attractiveness. It was found that there was no significant differences in self-assessment following rTMS (Phase I). However, attractiveness ratings differed significantly in Phase II. There was a significant difference found between 10 Hz TMS delivered to the MPFC (p<0.001) such that individuals were rated as less attractive. Furthermore, 1 Hz TMS to the MPFC increased the number of ‘Most Attractive’ ratings while 10Hz TMS decreased the number of ‘Most Attractive’ ratings (p’s<.001). These results suggest that the MPFC plays a role in attractiveness to others. These data also support research that one’s appearance can be altered below the level of awareness via rTMS . To our knowledge, this is the first investigations to have examined how brain stimulation influences one’s attractiveness.

    Keywords: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, investigation, resources, supervision, Writing -original draft

    Received: 05 Nov 2023; Accepted: 04 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zorns, Sierzputowski, Skowron, Minervini, Lavarco, Ash, Pardillo and Keenan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Julian P. Keenan, Montclair State University, Montclair, 07043, New Jersey, United States

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