Children at Risk for Schizophrenia Show Poor Facial-Emotion Recognition

Monday , 02/25/13 - 1:02
Facial emotion in schizophrenia

Children at high risk for schizophrenia may have difficulty distinguishing subtle differences in facial emotions, but these children may benefit from early interventions that teach them how to recognize emotions in faces. Hannah Dickson, doctoral student at King’s College in London, and her colleagues reported these findings in the online January 31 Schizophrenia Bulletin.

The investigators assessed 34 children between the ages of nine and 14 who displayed symptoms that tend to precede schizophrenia, such as motor and speech delays, internalizing or externalizing problems, and psychotic-like experiences.  They also examined 34 children who showed none of these symptoms.

Both groups of children completed an assessment that determined their ability to identify happy, sad, angry, fearful, or neutral expressions. Compared with typically developing children, children at high risk for schizophrenia presented with overall impairment in facial-emotion recognition.  In addition, those at risk for schizophrenia often characterized neutral expressions as sad.

Together, these deficits might contribute to the initiation or persistence of psychotic-like episodes, the researchers said. They concluded that facial emotion recognition may be a target for early interventions that are similar to those used for adults with risk factors for schizophrenia.

 

—Lauren LeBano

 

Reference

1. Dickson H, Calkins ME, Kohler CG, et al. Misperceptions of facial emotions among youth aged 9-14 years who present multiple antecedents of schizophrenia. Schizophr Bull. 2013 Jan 31;[Epub ahead of print].

Psych Topics: 
Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Schizophrenia & Psychotic Disorders

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Comments

craison_1

February 26, 2013 - 11:30am

I found this report fascinating in light of a study we recently published showing that 8 weeks of training in compassion meditation improved the ability of healthy adults to distinguish just the sorts of subtle facial expressions that children in the current study struggled with. Interestingly, in our study improvements in ability to read facial expressions was associated with increases in brain areas of key importance for what is often called "theory of mind"--the ability to infer the fact that other people have their own internal conscious worlds. One area that increased in response to compassion meditation training is the inferior frontal gyrus which is considered a mirror neuron area. The link between our study and the article above is further strengthened by recent work showing that compassion type meditation strategies may benefit individuals with schizophrenia. Here is the reference for our study: "Compassion meditation enhances empathic accuracy and related neural activity." Mascaro JS, Rilling JK, Tenzin Negi L, Raison CL. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2013 Jan;8(1):48-55

vmaletic_1

March 3, 2013 - 8:03pm

Was there a difference in terms of children's ability to identify negative feelings, such as sadness, fear and anger, vs. positive ones, such as happiness? Some of the previous studies noted a greater deal of difficulty classifying emotions predominantly expressed through eyes, i.e. negative emotions.

vmaletic_1

March 3, 2013 - 8:09pm

Was there a difference in accuracy identifying positive emotions vs. negative ones, such as anger, fear or sadness? Some of the previous studies of schizophrenic patients, noted a particular difficulty correctly classifying negative emotions, predominantly expressed through eyes.

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