Brain activation during processing of angry facial expressions in patients with alcohol dependency

Abstract

BackgroundAlcoholism is associated with abnormal anger processing. The purpose of this study was to investigate brain regions involved in the evaluation of angry facial expressions in patients with alcohol dependency.MethodsBrain blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) responses to angry faces were measured and compared between patients with alcohol dependency and controls.ResultsDuring intensity ratings of angry faces, significant differences in BOLD were observed between patients with alcohol dependency and controls. That is, patients who were alcohol-dependent showed significantly greater activation in several brain regions, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC).ConclusionsFollowing exposure to angry faces, abnormalities in dACC and MPFC activation in patients with alcohol dependency indicated possible inefficiencies or hypersensitivities in social cognitive processing.

Neural substrates involved in anger induced by audio-visual film clips among patients with alcohol dependency

“…Interesting findings of the study are that the dACC activity was decreased in the control group and increased in the alcoholic group despite the comparable level of subjective anger to standardized anger-induction stimuli. The greater dACC activation in the alcohol group relative to the control group is consistent with Park et al [ 31 ] in the evaluation of angry faces and feeling anger in the individuals with AUD college students [ 34 ]. The dACC is activated when participants are angered [ 28 ] and seems to be implicated in anger control [ 35 ].…”

“…This study strictly followed the research regulations of the University Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects Research. These participants attended in another study, i.e., the emotion perception experiment conducted in our laboratory [ 31 ]. Table 1 shows the demographics and alcohol use in the patient and control groups.…”

Electrophysiological correlates of emotional crossmodal processing in binge drinking

“…Lower resource recruitment and accelerated time to process anger has been associated with an adaptive behavioral response, as this allows faster motor reactions (Marsh, Ambady, & Kleck, 2005;; although observed only in nondrinking participants, this adjusting mechanism appears to be absent in BDs. Moreover, anger processing has been widely shown to be disrupted in severe alcohol-use disorders at behavioral and brain levels Park et al, 2015), and its consequences for social functioning and relapse risks also are well documented (Kornreich et al, 2002;. In BDs, early slowing down to detect anger voices can hide emotional difficulties in recognizing anger in others, as it has previously been shown in binge drinking (Maurage, Bestelmeyer, et al, 2013), which may play an important role in social conflicts (Attwood & Munafò, 2014) and more globally in interpersonal relationships.…”

The brain in social context: A systematic review of substance use and social processing from adolescence to young adulthood

“…Among adults older than 25, research on substance use and neural response to social stimuli is also sparse, but generally suggests a more consistent pattern than that found in youth. Neural activity during social exclusion appears to be higher in adults with AUD ( Charlet et al, 2014 ; Maurage et al, 2012 ; Park et al, 2015 ), and in those who use crack-cocaine ( Hanlon et al, 2019 ), compared to typical control participants. Further, adults who abuse alcohol displayed greater dACC and insula response to social exclusion during Cyberball ( Maurage et al, 2012 ), as well as greater activity while viewing emotional faces in the dACC ( Park et al, 2015 ), rostral ACC, mPFC, and precuneus ( Charlet et al, 2014 ).…”