A functional neuroimaging family study of facial emotion perception in schizophrenia
Date
2014-09-12
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Abstract
Deficits in facial emotion perception in schizophrenia may be a vulnerability marker for the disorder. Previous neuroimaging studies investigating these deficits were limited by confounding task demands that may recruit other impaired cognitive processes in schizophrenia. We used a family study design along with a passive viewing task to investigate brain activation abnormalities underlying facial emotion perception in schizophrenia and examine whether such abnormalities are associated with the genetic vulnerability for the disorder. Schizophrenia patients, nonpsychotic relatives, and healthy controls passively viewed images of facial emotions during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Region-of-interest and whole-brain analyses revealed hypoactivation in face processing areas for both schizophrenia patients and unaffected relatives compared to controls, and hyperactivation in relatives for frontal regions involved in emotion processing. Our results suggest that activation abnormalities during facial emotion perception represent genetic vulnerability markers for schizophrenia, and may be accompanied by compensatory mechanisms in relatives.
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Psychology--Clinical
Citation
Spilka, M. (2014). A functional neuroimaging family study of facial emotion perception in schizophrenia (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/24738