NESMOS Department (Neurosciences, Mental Health and Sense Organs) Unit of Psychiatry, Sant'Andrea Hospital, School of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
Schizophr Res. 2013 Jan;143(1):65-9. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2012.11.005. Epub 2012 Dec 4.
Individuals with schizophrenia experience problems in the perception of emotion throughout the course of the disorder. Few studies have addressed the progression of the deficit over time. The present investigation explores face emotion recognition (FER) performance throughout the course of schizophrenia. The aim of the study was to test the hypotheses that: 1) FER impairment was present in ultra high-risk (putatively prodromal) individuals, and that 2) impairment was stable across the course of the illness. Forty-three individuals with a putative prodromal syndrome, 50 patients with first episode of schizophrenia, 44 patients with multi-episode schizophrenia and 86 unaffected healthy control subjects were assessed to examine emotion recognition ability. ANCOVA analysis adjusted for possible confounder factors and subsequent planned contrasts with healthy controls was undertaken. The results revealed deficits in recognition of sadness and disgust in prodromal individuals, and of all negative emotions in both first-episode and multi-episode patients. Furthermore, there were no significant differences between clinical groups. Within the framework of the neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia, our results suggest the presence of emotional recognition impairment before the onset of full-blown psychosis. Moreover, the deficit remains stable over the course of illness, fitting the pattern of a vulnerability indicator in contrast to an indicator of chronicity or severity.
个体在精神分裂症的病程中会出现情绪感知问题。很少有研究探讨过这种缺陷随时间的进展情况。本研究探讨了精神分裂症病程中的面部情绪识别（FER）表现。研究的目的是检验以下假设：1）超早期风险（推测前驱期）个体存在 FER 损伤，2）损伤在疾病过程中是稳定的。对 43 名有前驱综合征的个体、50 名首发精神分裂症患者、44 名多发作精神分裂症患者和 86 名未受影响的健康对照组进行评估，以检查情绪识别能力。进行了协方差分析（ANCOVA），调整了可能的混杂因素，随后与健康对照组进行了计划对比。结果显示，前驱个体在识别悲伤和厌恶时存在缺陷，首发和多发作患者在识别所有负面情绪时都存在缺陷。此外，临床组之间没有显著差异。在精神分裂症的神经发育模型框架内，我们的研究结果表明，在完全精神病发作之前就存在情绪识别障碍。此外，这种缺陷在疾病过程中保持稳定，与慢性或严重程度的指标相反，符合易感性指标的模式。
