Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Schizophr Bull. 2017 Oct 21;43(6):1348-1362. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbx004.
Poor emotion recognition is a core deficit in schizophrenia and is associated with poor functional outcome. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) multivariate analysis methods were used to elucidate the neural underpinnings of face and emotion processing associated with both genetic liability and disease-specific effects. Schizophrenia patients, relatives, and controls completed a task that included 4 facial emotion discrimination conditions and an age discrimination condition during fMRI. Three functional networks were derived from the data: the first involved in visual attention and response generation, the second a default mode network (DMN), and a third involved in face and emotion processing. No differences in activation were found between groups for the visual attention and response generation network, suggesting that basic processes were intact. Both schizophrenia patients and relatives showed evidence for hyperdeactivation in the DMN compared to controls, with relatives being intermediate, suggesting a genetic liability effect. Both disease-specific and genetic liability effects were found for the face processing network, which included the amygdala. Patients exhibited lower coordinated network activity compared to controls and relatives across all facial discrimination conditions. Additionally, in relation to the other emotion discrimination conditions, a heightened coordinated response during fear and anger discrimination was observed in schizophrenia compared to other conditions, whereas relatives demonstrated heightened coordinated activity for anger discrimination only relative to other emotion conditions. With regards to brain functioning, this study found that schizophrenia is associated with abnormal processing of threat-related information, and that in part may be associated with the genetic risk for the disorder, suggesting that the facial and emotion processing network could be targeted for intervention.
情绪识别能力差是精神分裂症的核心缺陷，与功能预后不良有关。功能性磁共振成像 (fMRI) 多变量分析方法被用于阐明与遗传易感性和疾病特异性效应相关的面部和情绪处理的神经基础。精神分裂症患者、亲属和对照者在 fMRI 期间完成了一项任务，其中包括 4 种面部情绪辨别条件和一种年龄辨别条件。从数据中得出了三个功能网络：第一个涉及视觉注意力和反应生成，第二个是默认模式网络 (DMN)，第三个涉及面部和情绪处理。在视觉注意力和反应生成网络中，组间没有发现激活差异，这表明基本过程是完整的。与对照组相比，精神分裂症患者和亲属的 DMN 均表现出过度去激活，而亲属则处于中间状态，这表明存在遗传易感性效应。面部处理网络存在疾病特异性和遗传易感性效应，该网络包括杏仁核。与对照组和亲属相比，患者在所有面部辨别条件下表现出协调网络活动降低。此外，与其他情绪辨别条件相比，精神分裂症患者在恐惧和愤怒辨别时表现出协调反应增强，而亲属仅在愤怒辨别时相对于其他情绪条件表现出协调活动增强。就大脑功能而言，这项研究发现精神分裂症与威胁相关信息的异常处理有关，部分原因可能与该疾病的遗传风险有关，这表明面部和情绪处理网络可能是干预的目标。
