Recognition of facial expressions of emotion in panic disorder.

BACKGROUND

Whether patients with panic disorder behave differently or not when recognizing the facial expressions of emotion remains unsettled.

SAMPLING AND METHODS

We tested 21 outpatients with panic disorder and 34 healthy subjects, with a photo set from the Matsumoto and Ekman Japanese and Caucasian facial expressions of emotion, which includes anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

RESULTS

Compared to the healthy subjects, patients showed lower accuracies when recognizing disgust and fear, but a higher accuracy when recognizing surprise.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that the altered specificity to these emotions leads tso self-awareness mechanisms to prevent further emotional reactions in panic disorder patients.