Journal
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH
Volume 185, Issue 1-2, Pages 44-48Publisher
ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2009.10.006
Keywords
Facial expressions; Emotion recognition; Dynamic emotional test; Endophenotypes
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
It is well established that schizophrenia is associated with difficulties in recognizing facial emotional expressions, but few studies have reported the presence of this deficit among their unaffected relatives. This study attempts to add new evidence of familial association on an emotional expression processing test. The study evaluated the performance of 93 paranoid schizophrenia patients, 110 first-degree relatives of probands from multiplex schizophrenia families, and 109 nonpsychiatric controls on a facial emotional recognition test using a computer morphing technique to present the dynamic expressions. The task entailed the recognition of a set of facial expressions depicting the six basic emotions presented in 21 successive frames of increasing intensity. The findings indicated that schizophrenia patients were consistently impaired for the recognition of the six basic facial expressions. In contrast, their unaffected relatives showed a selective impairment for the recognition of disgust and fearful expressions. Familial association of selective facial emotional expressions processing deficit may further implicate promising new endophenotypes that can advance the understanding of affective deficits in schizophrenia. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available