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Werkmann NL, Luczejko AA, Hagelweide K, Stark R, Weigelt S, Christiansen H, Kieser M, Otto K, Reck C, Steinmayr R, Wirthwein L, Zietlow AL, Schwenck C. Facial emotion recognition in children of parents with a mental illness. Front Psychiatry 2024; 15:1366005. [PMID: 38938463 PMCID: PMC11210522 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1366005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2024] [Accepted: 05/23/2024] [Indexed: 06/29/2024] Open
Abstract
Objective Facial emotion recognition (FER) is a fundamental social skill essential for adaptive social behaviors, emotional development, and overall well-being. FER impairments have been linked to various mental disorders, making it a critical transdiagnostic mechanism influencing the development and trajectory of mental disorders. FER has also been found to play a role in the transgenerational transmission of mental disorders, with the majority of research suggesting FER impairments in children of parents with a mental illness (COPMI). Previous research primarily concentrated on COPMI of parents with internalizing disorders, which does not cover the full spectrum of outpatient mental health service populations. Furthermore, research focuses on varying components of FER by using different assessment paradigms, making it challenging to compare study results. To address these gaps, we comprehensively investigated FER abilities in COPMI using multiple tasks varying in task characteristics. Methods We included 189 children, 77 COPMI and 112 children of parents without a diagnosed mental illness (COPWMI), aged 6 to 16 years. We assessed FER using three tasks with varying task demands: an emotional Go/NoGo task, a morphing task, and a task presenting short video sequences depicting different emotions. We fitted separate two-level hierarchical Bayesian models (to account for sibling pairs in our sample) for reaction times and accuracy rates for each task. Good model fit was assured by comparing models using varying priors. Results Contrary to our expectations, our results revealed no general FER deficit in COPMI compared to COPWMI. The Bayesian models fitted for accuracy in the morphing task and Go/NoGo task yielded small yet significant effects. However, Bayes factors fitted for the models suggested that these effects could be due to random variations or noise in the data. Conclusions Our study does not support FER impairments as a general feature of COPMI. Instead, individual factors, such as the type of parental disorder and the timing of its onset, may play a crucial role in influencing FER development. Future research should consider these factors, taking into account the diverse landscape of parental mental disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naomi Leona Werkmann
- Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany
| | - Arleta Angelika Luczejko
- Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany
| | - Klara Hagelweide
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Technical University Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
| | - Rudolf Stark
- Department of Psychotherapy and Systems Neuroscience, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany
| | - Sarah Weigelt
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Technical University Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
| | - Hanna Christiansen
- Department of Psychology, Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg, Germany
| | - Meinhard Kieser
- Institute of Medical Biometry, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Kathleen Otto
- Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Philipps-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany
| | - Corinna Reck
- Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
| | - Ricarda Steinmayr
- Department of Psychology, Technical University Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
| | - Linda Wirthwein
- Department of Psychology, Technical University Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
| | - Anna-Lena Zietlow
- Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Christina Schwenck
- Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany
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Quarto T, Lella A, Di Carlo P, Rampino A, Paladini V, Papalino M, Romano R, Fazio L, Marvulli D, Popolizio T, Blasi G, Pergola G, Bertolino A. Heritability of amygdala reactivity to angry faces and its replicable association with the schizophrenia risk locus of miR-137. J Psychiatry Neurosci 2023; 48:E357-E366. [PMID: 37751917 PMCID: PMC10521919 DOI: 10.1503/jpn.230013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2023] [Revised: 07/11/2023] [Accepted: 07/30/2023] [Indexed: 09/28/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Among healthy participants, the interindividual variability of brain response to facial emotions is associated with genetic variation, including common risk variants for schizophrenia, a heritable brain disorder characterized by anomalies in emotion processing. We aimed to identify genetic variants associated with heritable brain activity during processing of facial emotions among healthy participants and to explore the impact of these identified variants among patients with schizophrenia. METHODS We conducted a data-driven stepwise study including samples of healthy twins, unrelated healthy participants and patients with schizophrenia. Participants approached or avoided pictures of faces with negative emotional valence during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). RESULTS We investigated 3 samples of healthy participants - including 28 healthy twin pairs, 289 unrelated healthy participants (genome-wide association study [GWAS] discovery sample) and 90 unrelated healthy participants (replication sample) - and 1 sample of 48 patients with schizophrenia. Among healthy twins, we identified the amygdala as the brain region with the highest heritability during processing of angry faces (heritability estimate 0.54, p < 0.001). Subsequent GWAS in both discovery and replication samples of healthy non-twins indicated that amygdala activity was associated with a polymorphism in the miR-137 locus (rs1198575), a micro-RNA strongly involved in risk for schizophrenia. A significant effect in the same direction was found among patients with schizophrenia (p = 0.03). LIMITATIONS The limited sample size available for GWAS analyses may require further replication of results. CONCLUSION Our data-driven approach shows preliminary evidence that amygdala activity, as evaluated with our task, is heritable. Our genetic associations preliminarily suggest a role for miR-137 in brain activity during explicit processing of facial emotions among healthy participants and patients with schizophrenia, pointing to the amygdala as a brain region whose activity is related to miR-137.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tiziana Quarto
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Annalisa Lella
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Pasquale Di Carlo
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Antonio Rampino
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Vittoria Paladini
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Marco Papalino
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Raffaella Romano
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Leonardo Fazio
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Daniela Marvulli
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Teresa Popolizio
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Giuseppe Blasi
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Giulio Pergola
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
| | - Alessandro Bertolino
- From the Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy (Quarto, Lella, Di Carlo, Rampino, Paladini, Papalino, Romano, Fazio, Marvulli, Blasi, Pergola, Bertolino); the Department of Humanities, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy (Quarto); the Psychiatry Unit, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy (Rampino, Blasi, Bertolino); the LUM (Fazio); the IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (Popolizio); the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, Baltimore, MD (Pergola)
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Igoshina E, Wu LC, Moxon-Emre I, Mabbott DJ. Social affective outcomes and brain injury in children and adolescents treated for brain tumours. THE LANCET. CHILD & ADOLESCENT HEALTH 2023:S2352-4642(23)00079-2. [PMID: 37263284 DOI: 10.1016/s2352-4642(23)00079-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2022] [Revised: 03/06/2023] [Accepted: 03/21/2023] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
In this Review we critically evaluate the empirical literature investigating the effect of paediatric brain tumours and their treatment on social affective function. We focus specifically on relations between social affective function and compromised brain structure and function associated with treatment for a paediatric brain tumour. We concentrate on emotion recognition and regulation, because these are core components of social affective function. First, we provide an overview of the literature in typically developing children and discuss the underlying brain networks thought to subserve emotion (ie, limbic system and supporting white matter microstructure). We then focus on how damage to brain structure and function after treatment for a paediatric brain tumour might be related to compromised emotion recognition and regulation-as well as broader social affective outcomes. On the basis of our review of the literature across typically developing children and those with a paediatric brain tumour, we suggest that structural changes to fronto-limbic tracts might interrupt social network neural communication in children and adolescents treated for brain tumours. A critical analysis of the reviewed literature suggests a relationship between social affective dysfunction and childhood-acquired injury to white matter microstructure. We argue that the knowledge synthesised regarding paediatric brain tumours could extend to other neurological disorders. Finally, we identify considerations for future investigation and recommend research practices to be adopted in forthcoming studies to establish causal links between brain structure and function to social affective processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizaveta Igoshina
- Department of Psychology, The University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Neurosciences and Mental Health Research Program, The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Liliana C Wu
- Department of Psychology, The University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Neurosciences and Mental Health Research Program, The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Iska Moxon-Emre
- The Margaret and Wallace McCain Centre for Child, Youth & Family Mental Health, Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Donald J Mabbott
- Department of Psychology, The University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Neurosciences and Mental Health Research Program, The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada.
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Kovsh E, Yavna D, Babenko V, Ermakov P, Vorobyeva E, Denisova E, Alekseeva D. The Success of Facial Expression Recognition by Carriers of Various Genotypes of the COMT, DRD4, 5HT2A, MAOA GENES. EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY (RUSSIA) 2022. [DOI: 10.17759/exppsy.2022150309] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
The work is aimed at describing the relationship between the genes COMT, DRD4, 5HT2A, MAOA with the success of facial expression recognition. These genes play an important role in various emotional and cognitive processes. At the same time, hereditary aspects of recognition of facial expressions, in contrast to sociocultural ones, have not been studied enough to date. The study involved 87 healthy students of Russian universities (20.4 ± 2.6 years). DNA analysis was carried out with the determination of genotypes by the polymorphic loci of the genes rs4680 COMT, rs6313 5HT2A (HTR2A), rs1800955 DRD4, VNTR MAOA (RSMU, Rostov-on-Don). The participants of the study were asked to distinguish emotional facial expressions in photographs taken from the MMI, KDEF, Rafd, WSEFEP image databases. The obtained results indicate the following differences in the success of facial expression recognition: carriers of the Val/Val genotype of the COMT gene significantly better recognize the emotions of surprise (H=7.7, df=2, p=0.02), fear (H=10.5, df=2, p=0.005), sadness (H=11.2, df=2, p=0.004); carriers of the heterozygous C/T genotype of the DRD4 gene significantly better recognize facial expression of disgust (H=9.1, df=2, p=0.01). No relationship was found between the MAOA gene genotypes and the success of emotion recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | | | - D.S. Alekseeva
- Regional Research Center of the Russian Academy of Education in the Southern Federal District
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Sun Y, Xu L, Luo X, Ren Y, Ding X. Unconscious social relation threats: Invisible boss face biases attention. Atten Percept Psychophys 2022; 84:76-88. [PMID: 34935121 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-021-02366-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Threatening stimuli as a kind of salient information often guide attentional orienting. Besides physically threatening stimuli, social threats can also strongly bias attention, even in the absence of conscious awareness. However, the available evidence mainly came from studies on an emotional face. It is unclear whether social relation threats, such as a boss face without emotional expressions, can also direct attentional orienting unconsciously. This study aimed to reveal the extent to which the attentional system has developed to process threatening stimuli by exploring whether invisible social relation threats unconsciously biased attention. We asked graduate and undergraduate students to perform a modified Posner's cue-target task, in which the probe was preceded by a pair of competitive face cues (an advisor's face and another faculty member's face), rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression. Experiment 1a's results showed that the advisor's face reflexively oriented graduate students' spatial attention, which was significantly correlated with subjective social threat evaluation. However, Experiment 1b showed that an invisible advisor's face did not induce the same effect in undergraduate students, as they reported significantly fewer threats from their advisors than graduates. To ensure the robustness of this new effect, we preregistered a replicate study and successfully replicated the above results in Experiments 2a and 2b. Our findings provide evidence for the existence of an attentional orienting bias toward invisible social relation threats. These results suggest that the attentional system evolved to promote the exploration of our visual environment for threatening social relation signals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanliang Sun
- School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, No.1 University Road, Jinan, China
| | - Luzi Xu
- Department of Psychology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, 132 Waihuan East Road, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xinyu Luo
- School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, No.1 University Road, Jinan, China
| | - Yanju Ren
- School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, No.1 University Road, Jinan, China.
| | - Xiaowei Ding
- Department of Psychology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, 132 Waihuan East Road, Guangzhou, China.
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A systematic review and meta-analysis of facial emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorder: The specificity of deficits and the role of task characteristics. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2021; 133:104518. [PMID: 34974069 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.104518] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2020] [Revised: 06/02/2021] [Accepted: 12/29/2021] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
This review assessed the specificity of facial emotion recognition impairment and the role of task characteristics in facial emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Based on subsets of 148 studies identified in PubMed and PsycINFO, random-effects meta-analyses showed significant impairment in recognizing all basic facial emotions in ASD. Additionally, ASD involves poorer facial emotion recognition than other clinical conditions and has similar impairment in recognizing emotional and nonemotional facial attributes, as well as in recognizing emotion in faces and other modalities. Furthermore, there are significant moderating effects for emotion complexity and holistic processing, a statistical trend for task type, and no significant effect for motion, social relevance, or stimulus salience on facial emotion recognition in ASD. Altogether, this review suggests nonselective facial emotion recognition impairment in ASD. Such impairment is relatively specific to ASD but is not specific to the recognition of emotional facial attributes or emotion recognition in the face modality. Identifying the role of task characteristics improves our understanding of the mechanisms underlying facial emotion recognition in ASD.
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Rappaport LM, Di Nardo N, Brotman MA, Pine DS, Leibenluft E, Roberson-Nay R, Hettema JM. Pediatric anxiety associated with altered facial emotion recognition. J Anxiety Disord 2021; 82:102432. [PMID: 34146888 PMCID: PMC8364876 DOI: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2021.102432] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2020] [Revised: 05/01/2021] [Accepted: 06/04/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Multiple psychiatric disorders are associated with difficulties in facial emotion recognition. However, generalized anxiety disorder may be associated with more accurate recognition of others' emotional expressions, particularly expressions of happiness and fear, which index safety and threat. Children aged 9-14 from a community sample (N = 601) completed a facial emotion labeling task. Children's symptoms of depressive and anxiety syndromes were assessed by self- and parent-report. Elevated symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder were associated with more accurate facial emotion recognition (β = 0.16, p = 0.007), specifically recognition of happiness (β = 0.17, p = 0.002) and fear (β = 0.15, p = 0.006). Elevated depressive symptoms were associated with less accurate facial emotion recognition (β = -0.12, p = 0.018), specifically happiness (β = -0.15, p = 0.002). Elevated symptoms of separation anxiety disorder were also associated with less accurate facial emotion recognition (β = -0.16, p = 0.003), specifically happiness (β = -0.15, p = 0.006) and fear (β = -0.15, p = 0.005), which highlights the importance of distinguishing between anxiety syndromes. Results held when adjusting for child age and sex. Evidence that symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder are associated with more accurate recognition of happiness and fear is consistent with theories of heightened social vigilance and support a transdiagnostic role of facial emotion recognition that may inform the psychosocial development of youth with anxiety and depressive symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lance M. Rappaport
- Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
| | - Nicole Di Nardo
- Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
| | - Melissa A. Brotman
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Daniel S. Pine
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Ellen Leibenluft
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Roxann Roberson-Nay
- Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
| | - John M. Hettema
- Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Texas A&M Health Sciences Center, Bryan, Texas, USA
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8
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Christova P, Joseph J, Georgopoulos AP. Behavioral-genetic associations in the Human Connectome Project. Exp Brain Res 2020; 238:2445-2456. [PMID: 32776238 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-020-05893-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2020] [Accepted: 07/22/2020] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
The Human Connectome Project (HCP) provides a rich dataset of quantitative and domain-specific behavioral measures from twins and extensive family structures. This makes the dataset a unique and a valuable resource to investigate heritability and determine individual differences. Using a set of measures of behavioral domains (motor, emotion, personality, sensory, and cognition), we estimated the intraclass correlations (ICCs) and heritability of 56 behavioral measures for 4 genetically identified groups of participants: monozygotic (MZ) twins, dizygotic (DZ) twins, non-twin siblings (SB), and unrelated individuals (NR). The ICCs range varied among behavioral domains but systematically so among the four genetic groups. We found the same rank order of ICCs, from the highest values for MZ twins, statistically significantly smaller for the DZ twins and sibling group (compared to MZ), and close to zero for NR. The mean heritability values of the five behavioral domains were: cognition h2 = 0.405, emotion h2 = 0.316, motor h2 = 0.138, personality h2 = 0.444, and sensory h2 = 0.193. These domains share overlapping brain networks. The heritability of motor domain was significantly smaller than cognitive, personality, and emotion domains. These findings provide new insight into the effect of genetics on the various diverse behavioral measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peka Christova
- Brain Sciences Center (11B), Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Minneapolis VAHCS, One Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN, 55417, USA.
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA.
| | - Jasmine Joseph
- Brain Sciences Center (11B), Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Minneapolis VAHCS, One Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN, 55417, USA
- Graduate Program in Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
| | - Apostolos P Georgopoulos
- Brain Sciences Center (11B), Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Minneapolis VAHCS, One Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN, 55417, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
- Department of Neurology, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
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Abramson L, Uzefovsky F, Toccaceli V, Knafo-Noam A. The genetic and environmental origins of emotional and cognitive empathy: Review and meta-analyses of twin studies. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2020; 114:113-133. [PMID: 32353470 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.03.023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2019] [Revised: 02/20/2020] [Accepted: 03/24/2020] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
Empathy is considered a cornerstone of human social experience, and as such has been widely investigated from psychological and neuroscientific approaches. To better understand the factors influencing individual differences in empathy, we reviewed and meta-analyzed the behavioral genetic literature of emotional empathy- sharing others' emotions (k=13), and cognitive empathy- understanding others' emotions (k = 15), as manifested in twin studies. Results showed that emotional empathy is more heritable, 48.3 % [41.3 %-50.6 %], than cognitive empathy, 26.9 % [18.1 %-35.8 %]. Moreover, cognitive empathy as examined by performance tests was affected by the environment shared by family members, 11.9 % [2.6 %-21.0 %], suggesting that emotional understanding is influenced, to some degree, by environmental factors that have similar effects on family members beyond their genetic relatedness. The effects of participants' age and the method used to asses empathy on the etiology of empathy were also examined. These findings have implications for understanding how individual differences in empathy are formed. After discussing these implications, we suggest theoretical and methodological future research directions that could potentially elucidate the relations between genes, brain, and empathy.
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10
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Roitblat Y, Cohensedgh S, Frig-Levinson E, Cohen M, Dadbin K, Shohed C, Shvartsman D, Shterenshis M. Emotional expressions with minimal facial muscle actions. Report 2: Recognition of emotions. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-020-00691-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
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11
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Zhu Z, Chen B, Na R, Fang W, Zhang W, Zhou Q, Zhou S, Lei H, Huang A, Chen T, Ni D, Gu Y, Liu J, Rao Y, Fang F. Heritability of human visual contour integration-an integrated genomic study. Eur J Hum Genet 2019; 27:1867-1875. [PMID: 31363184 PMCID: PMC6871533 DOI: 10.1038/s41431-019-0478-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2019] [Revised: 06/11/2019] [Accepted: 07/16/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Contour integration, a key visual function to deal with occlusion and discontinuity in natural scenes, is essential to human survival. However, individuals are not equally well equipped with this ability. In particular, contour integration deficiencies are commonly detected in patients with mental disorders, especially schizophrenia. To understand the underlying sources of these individual differences, the current study investigated the genetic basis of contour integration in humans. A total of 2619 normal participants were tested on their ability to detect continuous contours embedded in a cluttered background. Quantitative genomic analysis was performed, involving heritability estimation based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and association testing at SNP, gene, and pathway levels. Heritability estimation showed that common SNPs contributed 49.5% (standard error of the mean = 15.6%) of overall phenotypic variation, indicating moderate heritability of contour integration. Two-stage genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) detected four SNPs reaching genome-wide significance in the discovery test (N = 1931) but not passing the replication test (N = 688). Gene-level analysis further revealed a significant genome-wide association of a microRNA-encoding gene MIR1178 in both the discovery and replication cohorts. Another gene poly(A)-binding protein nuclear 1 like, cytoplasmic (PABPN1L) showed suggestive significance in the discovery cohort (p < 1 × 10-4) and was replicated in the replication cohort (p = 0.009). The pathway analysis did not detect any significant pathway. Taken together, this study identified significant gene associations with contour integration and provided support for a genetic transmission of the ability to perceive continuous contours in the environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zijian Zhu
- PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
| | - Biqing Chen
- PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
- Central Laboratory, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Jiangsu Province Hospital of Chinese Medicine, 210029, Nanjing, China
| | - Ren Na
- PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
| | - Wan Fang
- PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
- Beijing Innovative Center for Genomics, Peking University School of Life Sciences, and National Institute of Biological Sciences, 102206, Beijing, China
| | - Wenxia Zhang
- PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
| | - Qin Zhou
- College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, 400016, Chongqing, China
| | - Shanbi Zhou
- University-Town Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, 401331, Chongqing, China
| | - Han Lei
- College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, 400016, Chongqing, China
| | - Ailong Huang
- College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, 400016, Chongqing, China
| | - Tingmei Chen
- College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, 400016, Chongqing, China
| | - Dongsheng Ni
- Division of Molecular Nephrology and Creative Training Center for Undergraduates, M.O.E. Key Laboratory of Medical Diagnostics, College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, 400016, Chongqing, China
| | - Yuping Gu
- Division of Molecular Nephrology and Creative Training Center for Undergraduates, M.O.E. Key Laboratory of Medical Diagnostics, College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, 400016, Chongqing, China
| | - Jianing Liu
- Division of Molecular Nephrology and Creative Training Center for Undergraduates, M.O.E. Key Laboratory of Medical Diagnostics, College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, 400016, Chongqing, China
| | - Yi Rao
- PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
- Beijing Innovative Center for Genomics, Peking University School of Life Sciences, and National Institute of Biological Sciences, 102206, Beijing, China.
| | - Fang Fang
- PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
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12
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Estimating the stability of heartbeat counting in middle childhood: A twin study. Biol Psychol 2019; 148:107764. [DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.107764] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2019] [Revised: 08/05/2019] [Accepted: 09/03/2019] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
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13
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Moore AA, Rappaport LM, James Blair R, Pine DS, Leibenluft E, Brotman MA, Hettema JM, Roberson-Nay R. Genetic underpinnings of callous-unemotional traits and emotion recognition in children, adolescents, and emerging adults. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2019; 60:638-645. [PMID: 30779145 PMCID: PMC6520193 DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/11/2018] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Callous-Unemotional (CU) and psychopathic traits are consistently associated with impaired recognition of others' emotions, specifically fear and sadness. However, no studies have examined whether the association between CU traits and emotion recognition deficits is due primarily to genetic or environmental factors. METHODS The current study used data from 607 Caucasian twin pairs (N = 1,214 twins) to examine the phenotypic and genetic relationship between the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) and facial emotion recognition assessed via the laboratory-based Facial Expression Labeling Task (FELT). RESULTS The uncaring/callous dimension of the ICU was significantly associated with impaired recognition of happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust. The unemotional ICU dimension was significantly associated with improved recognition of surprise and disgust. Total ICU score was significantly associated with impaired recognition of sadness. Significant genetic correlations were found for uncaring/callous traits and distress cue recognition (i.e. fear and sadness). The observed relationship between uncaring/callous traits and deficits in distress cue recognition was accounted for entirely by shared genetic influences. CONCLUSIONS The results of the current study replicate previous findings demonstrating impaired emotion recognition among youth with elevated CU traits. We extend these findings by replicating them in an epidemiological sample not selected or enriched for pathological levels of CU traits. Furthermore, the current study is the first to investigate the genetic and environmental etiology of CU traits and emotion recognition, and results suggest genetic influences underlie the specific relationship between uncaring/callous traits and distress cue (fear/sadness) recognition in others.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashlee A. Moore
- Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA,Center for Clinical and Translational Research, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
| | - Lance M. Rappaport
- Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA,Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
| | - R. James Blair
- Center for Neurobehavioral Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE
| | - Daniel S. Pine
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD
| | - Ellen Leibenluft
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD
| | - Melissa A. Brotman
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD
| | - John M. Hettema
- Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA,Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
| | - Roxann Roberson-Nay
- Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA,Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
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14
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Schapira R, Anger Elfenbein H, Amichay-Setter M, Zahn-Waxler C, Knafo-Noam A. Shared Environment Effects on Children's Emotion Recognition. Front Psychiatry 2019; 10:215. [PMID: 31057435 PMCID: PMC6477858 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00215] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2019] [Accepted: 03/25/2019] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Empathy is relevant to many psychiatric conditions. Empathy involves the natural ability to perceive and be sensitive to the emotional states of others. Thus, emotion recognition (ER) abilities are key to understanding empathy. Despite the importance of ER to normal and abnormal social interactions, little is known about how it develops throughout childhood. We examined genetic and environmental influences on children's ER via facial and vocal cues in 344 7-year-old twin children [59 monozygotic (MZ) and 113 same-sex dizygotic (DZ) pairs], who were part of the Longitudinal Israeli Study of Twins. ER was assessed with the child version of the Diagnostic Assessment of Nonverbal Accuracy. For both facial and vocal cues of emotion, twin correlations were not higher for MZ twins than for DZ twins, suggesting no heritability for ER in this population. In contrast, correlations were positive for both types of twins, indicating a shared environmental effect. This was supported by a bivariate genetic analysis. This pattern was robust to controlling for twins being of the same sex and age. Effects remained after controlling for background variables such as family income and number of additional siblings. The analysis found a shared environmental correlation between facial and vocal ER (r c = .63), indicating that the shared environmental factors contributed to the overlap between vocal and facial ER. The study highlights the importance of the shared environment to children's ER.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rotem Schapira
- The Mofet Institute, Tel-Aviv, Israel.,Levinsky College of Education, Tel-Aviv, Israel
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15
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Rappaport LM, Carney DM, Verhulst B, Neale MC, Blair J, Brotman MA, Pine DS, Leibenluft E, Hettema JM, Roberson-Nay R. A Developmental Twin Study of Emotion Recognition and Its Negative Affective Clinical Correlates. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2018; 57:925-933.e3. [PMID: 30522738 PMCID: PMC7036262 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2018.05.028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2017] [Revised: 05/16/2018] [Accepted: 06/14/2018] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Youth with psychiatric disorders distinguished by irritability, including depression and associated trait neuroticism, show deficits in the ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion, particularly happiness. However, the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to this ability remains unknown. The present study examined this trait in twins to assess the genetic and environmental influences on face-emotion recognition abilities and their association with irritability, neuroticism, and depression. METHOD Child and adolescent twins (N = 957 from 496 families) 9 to 17 years old rated their irritability (on the Affective Reactivity Index), neuroticism (on the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire), and depression (on the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire) and completed a face-emotion labeling task. Faces depicting anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise were morphed with a neutral face, yielding 10 levels of increasing emotional expressivity. Biometrical twin analyses evaluated contributions of genetic and environmental factors to the etiology of face-emotion recognition and its association with irritability, neuroticism, and depression. RESULTS Recognition of each emotion was heritable; common and specific sets of genetic factors influenced all emotions and individual emotions, respectively. Irritability, neuroticism, and depression were modestly and negatively correlated with emotion recognition, particularly the recognition of happiness. For irritability and neuroticism, this correlation appeared largely due to genetic factors. CONCLUSION This study maps genetic and environmental contributions to face-emotion recognition and its association with irritability, neuroticism, and depression. Findings implicate common genetic factors in deficits regarding the recognition of happiness associated with irritability and neuroticism in childhood and adolescence.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | - James Blair
- National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD
| | | | | | | | - John M Hettema
- Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
| | - Roxann Roberson-Nay
- Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
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16
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Facial emotion perception in patients with epilepsy: A systematic review with meta-analysis. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2017; 83:212-225. [PMID: 29045812 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.10.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2017] [Revised: 10/13/2017] [Accepted: 10/13/2017] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Facial emotion perception is a fundamental social competency relying on a specialised, yet distributed, neural network. This review aimed to determine whether patients with epilepsy have facial emotion perception accuracy impairments overall, or for a subset of emotions (anger, disgust, happiness, sadness, fear, and surprise), and the relationship to epilepsy type, demographic/treatment variables, and brain organisation. Database searches used PRISMA guidelines with strict inclusion/exclusion criteria. Thirty included studies assessed patients with temporal lobe (TLE; n=709), frontocentral (FCE; n=22), and genetic generalised (GGE; n=48) epilepsy. Large deficits emerged in patients with epilepsy compared to controls (n=746; Hedges' g=0.908-1.076). Patients with TLE were significantly impaired on all emotions except surprise; patients with GGE were significantly impaired in anger, disgust, and fear perception. Meta-regression of patients with TLE revealed younger age at testing was associated with lower accuracy. This review provides evidence for marked global deficits of emotion perception in epilepsy, with differential emotion-specific impairment patterns in patients with TLE and GGE.
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17
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Coleman JR, Lester KJ, Keers R, Munafò MR, Breen G, Eley TC. Genome-wide association study of facial emotion recognition in children and association with polygenic risk for mental health disorders. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet 2017; 174:701-711. [PMID: 28608620 PMCID: PMC5638097 DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.32558] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2016] [Accepted: 05/12/2017] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Abstract
Emotion recognition is disrupted in many mental health disorders, which may reflect shared genetic aetiology between this trait and these disorders. We explored genetic influences on emotion recognition and the relationship between these influences and mental health phenotypes. Eight-year-old participants (n = 4,097) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) completed the Diagnostic Analysis of Non-Verbal Accuracy (DANVA) faces test. Genome-wide genotype data was available from the Illumina HumanHap550 Quad microarray. Genome-wide association studies were performed to assess associations with recognition of individual emotions and emotion in general. Exploratory polygenic risk scoring was performed using published genomic data for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, autism spectrum disorder, anorexia, and anxiety disorders. No individual genetic variants were identified at conventional levels of significance in any analysis although several loci were associated at a level suggestive of significance. SNP-chip heritability analyses did not identify a heritable component of variance for any phenotype. Polygenic scores were not associated with any phenotype. The effect sizes of variants influencing emotion recognition are likely to be small. Previous studies of emotion identification have yielded non-zero estimates of SNP-heritability. This discrepancy is likely due to differences in the measurement and analysis of the phenotype.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan R.I. Coleman
- King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, MRC SocialGenetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) CentreLondonUK,National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research CentreSouth London and Maudsley National Health Service TrustLondonUK
| | | | - Robert Keers
- King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, MRC SocialGenetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) CentreLondonUK,School of Biological and Chemical SciencesQueen Mary University of LondonLondonUK
| | - Marcus R. Munafò
- MRC Integrative Epidemiology UnitUniversity of BristolBristolUK,UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, School of Experimental PsychologyUniversity of BristolBristolUK
| | - Gerome Breen
- King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, MRC SocialGenetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) CentreLondonUK,National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research CentreSouth London and Maudsley National Health Service TrustLondonUK
| | - Thalia C. Eley
- King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, MRC SocialGenetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) CentreLondonUK,National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research CentreSouth London and Maudsley National Health Service TrustLondonUK
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18
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Koeneke A, Ponce G, Hoenicka J, Huertas E. The ANKK1/DRD2 locus is a genomic substrate for affective priming and recognition of angry faces. Brain Behav 2015; 5:e00405. [PMID: 26664790 PMCID: PMC4667759 DOI: 10.1002/brb3.405] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2015] [Revised: 07/07/2015] [Accepted: 09/05/2015] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Ankyrin repeat and kinase domain containing I (ANKK1) and dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) genes have been associated with psychopathic traits in clinical samples. On the other hand, individuals high in psychopathy show reduced affective priming and deficits in facial expression recognition. We have hypothesized that these emotion-related cognitive phenomena are associated with Taq IA (rs18000497) SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) of the ANKK1 gene and with C957T (rs6277) SNP of the DRD2 gene. METHODS We performed a genetic association analysis in 94 self-reported Caucasian healthy volunteers. The participants completed 144 trials of an affective priming task, in which primes and targets were emotional words. They also had to recognize 64 facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, and fear in an expression recognition task. Regarding the genetic analyses, Taq IA and C957T SNPs were genotyped. RESULTS We found that the C957T SNP TT genotype was associated with a stronger priming effect and a better recognition of angry expressions. No associations were found for the Taq IA SNP. In addition, in silico analysis demonstrated that C957T SNP is a marker of a regulatory sequence at the 5' UTR of ANKK1 gene, thus suggesting the involvement of the whole ANKK1/DRD2 locus in cognitive-emotional processing. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that affective priming and recognition of angry facial expressions are endophenotypes that lie on the pathway between the ANKK1/DRD2 locus and some deviant phenotypes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alejandra Koeneke
- Faculty of Psychology Complutense University of Madrid Madrid Spain ; Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Hospital 12 de Octubre Madrid Spain
| | - Guillermo Ponce
- Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Hospital 12 de Octubre Madrid Spain ; Red de Trastornos Adictivos (RTA) Madrid Spain
| | - Janet Hoenicka
- Program in Rare and Genetic Diseases & IBV/CSIC Associated Unit Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe Valencia Spain ; Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM) ISCIII Madrid Spain ; School of Medicine at Ciudad Real University of Castilla-La Mancha Ciudad Real Spain
| | - Evelio Huertas
- Faculty of Psychology Complutense University of Madrid Madrid Spain
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Brain-behavior relationships in the experience and regulation of negative emotion in healthy children: implications for risk for childhood depression. Dev Psychopathol 2015; 26:1289-303. [PMID: 25422962 DOI: 10.1017/s0954579414001035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Structural and functional alterations in a variety of brain regions have been associated with depression and risk for depression across the life span. A majority of these regions are associated with emotion reactivity and/or regulation. However, it is generally unclear what mechanistic role these alterations play in the etiology of depression. A first step toward understanding this is to characterize the relationships between variation in brain structure/function and individual differences in depression severity and related processes, particularly emotion regulation. To this end, the current study examines how brain structure and function predict concurrent and longitudinal measures of depression symptomology and emotion regulation skills in psychiatrically healthy school-age children (N = 60). Specifically, we found that smaller hippocampus volumes and greater responses to sad faces in emotion reactivity regions predict increased depressive symptoms at the time of scan, whereas larger amygdala volumes, smaller insula volumes, and greater responses in emotion reactivity regions predict decreased emotion regulation skills. In addition, larger insula volumes predict improvements in emotion regulation skills even after accounting for emotion regulation at the time of scan. Understanding brain-behavior relationships in psychiatrically healthy samples, especially early in development, will help inform normative developmental trajectories and neural alterations in depression and other affective pathology.
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20
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Ben-Israel S, Uzefovsky F, Ebstein RP, Knafo-Noam A. Dopamine D4 receptor polymorphism and sex interact to predict children's affective knowledge. Front Psychol 2015; 6:846. [PMID: 26157401 PMCID: PMC4477057 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00846] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2014] [Accepted: 06/03/2015] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Affective knowledge, the ability to understand others' emotional states, is considered to be a fundamental part in efficient social interaction. Affective knowledge can be seen as related to cognitive empathy, and in the framework of theory of mind (ToM) as affective ToM. Previous studies found that cognitive empathy and ToM are heritable, yet little is known regarding the specific genes involved in individual variability in affective knowledge. Investigating the genetic basis of affective knowledge is important for understanding brain mechanisms underlying socio-cognitive abilities. The 7-repeat (7R) allele within the third exon of the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4-III) has been a focus of interest, due to accumulated knowledge regarding its relevance to individual differences in social behavior. A recent study suggests that an interaction between the DRD4-III polymorphism and sex is associated with cognitive empathy among adults. We aimed to examine the same association in two childhood age groups. Children (N = 280, age 3.5 years, N = 283, age 5 years) participated as part of the Longitudinal Israel Study of Twins. Affective knowledge was assessed through children's responses to an illustrated story describing different emotional situations, told in a laboratory setting. The findings suggest a significant interaction between sex and the DRD4-III polymorphism, replicated in both age groups. Boy carriers of the 7R allele had higher affective knowledge scores than girls, whereas in the absence of the 7R there was no significant sex effect on affective knowledge. The results support the importance of DRD4-III polymorphism and sex differences to social development. Possible explanations for differences from adult findings are discussed, as are pathways for future studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sharon Ben-Israel
- Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel ; Department of Psychology, Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Florina Uzefovsky
- Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel ; Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK
| | - Richard P Ebstein
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore Singapore, Singapore
| | - Ariel Knafo-Noam
- Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel
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Abstract
Recent studies suggest that impaired processing of facial affect has a familial component and may reflect a marker of liability to psychopathology. This study investigated whether facial affect processing is impaired in offspring with parental panic disorder (PD). Psychiatrically healthy children with parental PD (n = 51) and age and sex matched control children with no parental psychopathology (n = 51) completed a standard facial recognition task. High-risk children made more errors recognizing fearful faces than controls and misattributed fear and angry facial affect as surprised. High-risk females also made more errors recognizing sad faces compared to low risk females and misattributed sadness as fear. No difference emerged for self-rated anxiety while viewing facial expressions. However, self-rated anxiety correlated moderately with misrecognition of fearful facial affect in high-risk children. Overall, our data suggest that the ability to correctly recognize negative facial emotions is impaired in children with parental PD. Further research is needed to confirm if these deficits represent a trait marker of liability for PD and elucidate the contribution of genetic and family environmental influences.
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22
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Brown HM, Eley TC, Broeren S, Macleod C, Rinck M, Hadwin JA, Lester KJ. Psychometric properties of reaction time based experimental paradigms measuring anxiety-related information-processing biases in children. J Anxiety Disord 2014; 28:97-107. [PMID: 24486916 DOI: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2013.11.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 97] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2013] [Revised: 10/29/2013] [Accepted: 11/16/2013] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Theoretical frameworks highlight the importance of threat-related information-processing biases for understanding the emergence of anxiety in childhood. The psychometric properties of several tasks measuring these biases and their associations with anxiety were examined in an unselected sample of 9-year-old children (N=155). In each task, threat bias was assessed using bias scores reflecting task performance on threat versus non-threat conditions. Reliability was assessed using split-half and test-retest correlations of mean reaction times (RTs), accuracy and bias indices. Convergence between measures was also examined. Mean RTs showed substantial split-half and test-retest correlations. Bias score reliability coefficients were near zero and non-significant, suggesting poor reliability in children of this age. Additionally, associations between bias scores and anxiety were weak and inconsistent and performance between tasks showed little convergence. Bias scores from RT based paradigms in the current study lacked adequate psychometric properties for measuring individual differences in anxiety-related information-processing in children.
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Affiliation(s)
- H M Brown
- Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, United Kingdom
| | - T C Eley
- Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, United Kingdom
| | - S Broeren
- Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, Netherlands
| | - C Macleod
- Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, University of Western Australia, Australia
| | - M Rinck
- Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - J A Hadwin
- Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
| | - K J Lester
- Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, United Kingdom.
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Palermo R, O'Connor KB, Davis JM, Irons J, McKone E. New tests to measure individual differences in matching and labelling facial expressions of emotion, and their association with ability to recognise vocal emotions and facial identity. PLoS One 2013; 8:e68126. [PMID: 23840821 PMCID: PMC3695959 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068126] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/17/2012] [Accepted: 05/17/2013] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Although good tests are available for diagnosing clinical impairments in face expression processing, there is a lack of strong tests for assessing "individual differences"--that is, differences in ability between individuals within the typical, nonclinical, range. Here, we develop two new tests, one for expression perception (an odd-man-out matching task in which participants select which one of three faces displays a different expression) and one additionally requiring explicit identification of the emotion (a labelling task in which participants select one of six verbal labels). We demonstrate validity (careful check of individual items, large inversion effects, independence from nonverbal IQ, convergent validity with a previous labelling task), reliability (Cronbach's alphas of.77 and.76 respectively), and wide individual differences across the typical population. We then demonstrate the usefulness of the tests by addressing theoretical questions regarding the structure of face processing, specifically the extent to which the following processes are common or distinct: (a) perceptual matching and explicit labelling of expression (modest correlation between matching and labelling supported partial independence); (b) judgement of expressions from faces and voices (results argued labelling tasks tap into a multi-modal system, while matching tasks tap distinct perceptual processes); and (c) expression and identity processing (results argued for a common first step of perceptual processing for expression and identity).
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Affiliation(s)
- Romina Palermo
- School of Psychology, and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
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Tiemeier H, Velders FP, Szekely E, Roza SJ, Dieleman G, Jaddoe VWV, Uitterlinden AG, White TJH, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ, Hofman A, Van Ijzendoorn MH, Hudziak JJ, Verhulst FC. The Generation R Study: a review of design, findings to date, and a study of the 5-HTTLPR by environmental interaction from fetal life onward. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2012; 51:1119-1135.e7. [PMID: 23101739 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2012.08.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 92] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2012] [Revised: 05/23/2012] [Accepted: 08/23/2012] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE First, we give an overview of child psychiatric research in the Generation R Study, a population-based cohort from fetal life forward. Second, we examine within Generation R whether the functional polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) in the promoter of the serotonin transporter gene interacts with prenatal maternal chronic difficulties, prenatal maternal anxiety or postnatal maternal anxiety to influence child emotional development. METHOD A total of 2,136 northern European children were genotyped for 5-HTTLPR and rs25531. Mothers reported chronic difficulties and anxiety symptoms at 20 weeks' pregnancy and when the child was 3 years old. Child emotion recognition was observed at 3 years, and child emotional problems were assessed with the CBCL/1½-5 at 5 years. RESULTS There were consistent main effects of maternal difficulties and anxiety on child emotional problems, but no main effect of 5-HTTLPR. Moreover, children with the s allele were at increased risk for emotional problems if their mothers reported prenatal anxiety symptoms (β = 2.02, p < .001) or postnatal anxiety symptoms (β = 1.64, p < 0.001). Also, in children of mothers with prenatal anxiety symptoms, the s allele was associated with less accurate emotion-matching (β = -0.11, p = .004). CONCLUSIONS This population-based study shows that vulnerability due to 5-HTTLPR is not specific for certain adverse exposures or severe events, but suggests that the small effects of gene-environment interaction on emotional development become manifest early in life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Henning Tiemeier
- Erasmus Medical Center (MC)-Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam, and the Generation R Study Group at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam.
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Lau JYF, Hilbert K, Goodman R, Gregory AM, Pine DS, Viding EM, Eley TC. Investigating the genetic and environmental bases of biases in threat recognition and avoidance in children with anxiety problems. BIOLOGY OF MOOD & ANXIETY DISORDERS 2012; 2:12. [PMID: 22788754 PMCID: PMC3487968 DOI: 10.1186/2045-5380-2-12] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2011] [Accepted: 05/21/2012] [Indexed: 12/03/2022]
Abstract
Background Adults with anxiety show biased categorization and avoidance of threats. Such biases may emerge through complex interplay between genetics and environments, occurring early in life. Research on threat biases in children has focuses on a restricted range of biases, with insufficient focus on genetic and environmental origins. Here, we explore differences between children with and without anxiety problems in under-studied areas of threat bias. We focused both on associations with anxious phenotype and the underlying gene-environmental correlates for two specific processes: the categorisation of threat faces and avoidance learning. Method Two-hundred and fifty 10-year old MZ and DZ twin pairs (500 individuals) completed tasks assessing accuracy in the labelling of threatening facial expressions and in the acquisition of avoidant responses to a card associated with a masked threatening face. To assess whether participants met criteria for an anxiety disorder, parents of twins completed a self-guided computerized version of the Development and Well-being Assessment (DAWBA). Comparison of MZ and DZ twin correlations using model-fitting were used to compute estimates of genetic, shared and non-shared environmental effects. Results Of the 500 twins assessed, 25 (5%) met diagnostic criteria for a current anxiety disorder. Children with anxiety disorders were more accurate in their ability to recognize disgust faces than those without anxiety disorders, but were commensurate on identifying other threatening face emotions (angry, fearful, sad). Children with anxiety disorders but also more strongly avoided selecting a conditioned stimulus than non-anxious children. While recognition of socially threatening faces was moderately heritable, avoidant responses were heavily influenced by the non-shared environment. Conclusion These data add to other findings on threat biases in anxious children. Specifically, we found biases in the labelling of some negative-valence faces and in the acquisition of avoidant responses. While non-shared environmental effects explained all of the variance on threat avoidance, some of this may be due to measurement error.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer Y F Lau
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK.
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Zhu B, Chen C, Moyzis RK, Dong Q, Chen C, He Q, Stern HS, Li H, Li J, Li J, Lessard J, Lin C. Genetic variations in the dopamine system and facial expression recognition in healthy chinese college students. Neuropsychobiology 2012; 65:83-9. [PMID: 22222624 DOI: 10.1159/000329555] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2011] [Accepted: 05/23/2011] [Indexed: 01/17/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE This study investigated the relation between genetic variations in the dopamine system and facial expression recognition. METHODS A sample of Chinese college students (n = 478) was given a facial expression recognition task. Subjects were genotyped for 98 loci [96 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 2 variable number tandem repeats] in 16 genes involved in the dopamine neurotransmitter system, including its 4 subsystems: synthesis (TH, DDC, and DBH), degradation/transport (COMT,MAOA,MAOB, and SLC6A3), receptors (DRD1,DRD2,DRD3,DRD4, and DRD5), and modulation (NTS,NTSR1,NTSR2, and NLN). To quantify the total contributions of the dopamine system to emotion recognition, we used a series of multiple regression models. Permutation analyses were performed to assess the posterior probabilities of obtaining such results. RESULTS Among the 78 loci that were included in the final analyses (after excluding 12 SNPs that were in high linkage disequilibrium and 8 that were not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium), 1 (for fear), 3 (for sadness), 5 (for anger), 13 (for surprise), and 15 (for disgust) loci exhibited main effects on the recognition of facial expressions. Genetic variations in the dopamine system accounted for 3% for fear, 6% for sadness, 7% for anger, 10% for surprise, and 18% for disgust, with the latter surviving a stringent permutation test. CONCLUSIONS Genetic variations in the dopamine system (especially the dopamine synthesis and modulation subsystems) made significant contributions to individual differences in the recognition of disgust faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bi Zhu
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
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Olsavsky AK, Brotman MA, Rutenberg JG, Muhrer EJ, Deveney CM, Fromm SJ, Towbin K, Pine DS, Leibenluft E. Amygdala hyperactivation during face emotion processing in unaffected youth at risk for bipolar disorder. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2012; 51:294-303. [PMID: 22365465 PMCID: PMC3292775 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2011.12.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 62] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2011] [Revised: 12/06/2011] [Accepted: 12/07/2011] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Youth at familial risk for bipolar disorder (BD) show deficits in face emotion processing, but the neural correlates of these deficits have not been examined. This preliminary study tests the hypothesis that, relative to healthy comparison (HC) subjects, both BD subjects and youth at risk for BD (i.e., those with a first-degree BD relative) will demonstrate amygdala hyperactivation when viewing fearful and happy faces. The at-risk youth were unaffected, in that they had no history of mood disorder. METHOD Amygdala activity was examined in 101 unrelated participants, 8 to 18 years old. Age, gender, and IQ-matched groups included BD (N = 32), unaffected at-risk (N = 13), and HC (N = 56). During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants attended to emotional and nonemotional aspects of fearful and happy faces. RESULTS While rating their fear of fearful faces, both BD and unaffected at-risk subjects exhibited amygdala hyperactivity versus HC. There were no between-group differences in amygdala activity in response to happy faces. Post-hoc comparisons revealed that, in at-risk youth, familial risk status (offspring versus sibling), presence of Axis I diagnosis (n = 1 attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], n = 1 social phobia), and history of medication exposure (n = 1) did not influence imaging findings. CONCLUSIONS We found amygdala hyperactivation in both unaffected at-risk and BD youth while rating their fear of fearful faces. These pilot data suggest that both face emotion labeling deficits and amygdala hyperactivity during face processing should receive further study as potential BD endophenotypes. Longitudinal studies should test whether amygdala hyperactivity to fearful faces predicts conversion to BD in at-risk youth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aviva K. Olsavsky
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland,David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles
| | - Melissa A. Brotman
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Julia G. Rutenberg
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Eli J. Muhrer
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Christen M. Deveney
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Stephen J. Fromm
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Kenneth Towbin
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Daniel S. Pine
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Ellen Leibenluft
- Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland
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Pfeifer JH, Masten CL, Moore WE, Oswald TM, Mazziotta JC, Iacoboni M, Dapretto M. Entering adolescence: resistance to peer influence, risky behavior, and neural changes in emotion reactivity. Neuron 2011; 69:1029-36. [PMID: 21382560 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.02.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 172] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/30/2010] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
Adolescence is often described as a period of heightened reactivity to emotions paired with reduced regulatory capacities, a combination suggested to contribute to risk-taking and susceptibility to peer influence during puberty. However, no longitudinal research has definitively linked these behavioral changes to underlying neural development. Here, 38 neurotypical participants underwent two fMRI sessions across the transition from late childhood (10 years) to early adolescence (13 years). Responses to affective facial displays exhibited a combination of general and emotion-specific changes in ventral striatum (VS), ventromedial PFC, amygdala, and temporal pole. Furthermore, VS activity increases correlated with decreases in susceptibility to peer influence and risky behavior. VS and amygdala responses were also significantly more negatively coupled in early adolescence than in late childhood while processing sad and happy versus neutral faces. Together, these results suggest that VS responses to viewing emotions may play a regulatory role that is critical to adolescent interpersonal functioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer H Pfeifer
- Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1227, USA.
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