017 - The Face/ Voice Complex

If someone is particularly emotionally transparent, available, easy-to-read, we will often say that they wear their heart on their sleeve. But this is not true: we wear our hearts on our faces and in our voices. You know this already, even if you don't realize it.

Think about someone you know really well. Is it not true that if you phone this person, and spend just a moment with them, you can tell if something is wrong? You say, "Hey, how are you?" and even in a slight delay, or the micro-intonation of their voice, you can tell something is amiss. They say two words, and you say, “What's wrong?" They say, "Nothing." But you can hear it in their voice.

How is this so? The connection system that we have been describing is a neural complex that wires together many of the cranial nerves involved in sociality, including your 10th cranial nerve, the Vagus (its ventral branch), with the facial (IX) and trigeminal (V) nerves, the glossopharyngeal (VII), vestibulocochlear (VIII), as well as the accessory nerve (XI). The facial and trigeminal nerves innervate the face, the glossopharyngeal innervates the voice.

Let's return for a moment to the neuro-development of the fetus, and look at the direction of growth of this wiring. We start with the heart, which grows up to the brainstem. Here in the brainstem are the terminations of the vagus, which are adjacent to (slightly behind) the roots of the facial nerve, and the trigeminal ganglia. The heart flowers into the brainstem, the petals open into the face and voice. The signature of your moment-to-moment heart-rate variability is expressed in your face and your voice all the time. It cannot not be.