The facial skin reflects as much as it speaks: Associations between skin condition and whole-brain fractional anisotropy

Recent research has revealed that the connection between the brain and skin is bidirectional, drawing increasing attention. However, few studies have examined the interrelationships among skin, stress, and brain structure in an integrated manner. In this study, we analyzed the association between facial skin information obtained through image analysis and whole-brain fractional anisotropy (FA) derived from brain imaging. Our results demonstrated a correlation between facial skin information and FA, independent of the association between stress-measured using a psychological questionnaire-and FA. These findings suggest that facial skin information may serve as a useful complement to psychological questionnaires for understanding stress and brain conditions.