Task-Related Functional Connectivity Analysis of Emotion Discrimination in a Family Study of Schizophrenia

Abstract

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.

Understanding others: Emotion recognition in humans and other animals

“…Through its broad pattern of connectivity with cortical and subcortical structures, the amygdala might play a broader role in the recognition of emotions, detecting and processing socially salient cues . These findings have also been corroborated by neuroimaging studies associating dysfunctions in negative and positive emotions processing in neuropsychiatric patients, with alterations in amygdala responses …”

“…76 These findings have also been corroborated by neuroimaging studies associating dysfunctions in negative and positive emotions processing in neuropsychiatric patients, with alterations in amygdala responses. 17,[77][78][79] Additionally, a number of brain areas and connective pathways implicated in emotion perception and processing require further investigation. It is possible that within the same brain region there are circuit-or cell-specific heterogeneities that control different aspects of emotion recognition and processing.…”

Altered functional brain dynamics in chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome during facial affect processing

“…Neuroimaging studies have implicated early top-down inhibition from anterior cingulate cortex to the amygdala in facial affect processing 9,10 . Increased amygdalar activation to stimuli with negative emotional salience has been found in schizophrenia 11,12 , along with reduced interaction between amygdala and frontoparietal cortex 13 . Nevertheless, it remains unclear how regional activations and network interactions result in behaviorally relevant emotion processing, and which components of this process contribute to dysfunctional facial affect processing in 22q11.2DS.…”

“…Here, we hypothesized that primary visual and motor processing would be preserved in individuals with 22q11.2DS, while frontolimbic interactions subserving bottom-up emotion-processing 6,7 would be disrupted in individuals with 22q11.2DS. We applied constrained principal component analysis (CPCA) 13,[20][21][22][23][24] to identify brain activation patterns evoked by images of faces, and quantified their time course of activation after emotion identification. Specifically, we used emotion identification task fMRI data 8,11,25 acquired from 58 individuals with 22q11.2DS identified through the 22q and You Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, examined as part of a prospective brain-behavior study of 22q11.2DS, and 58 age-, sex-, and race-matched healthy controls (HCs) from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort 26,27 .…”

Reduced activity and connectivity of left amygdala in patients with schizophrenia treated with clozapine or olanzapine

“…Differences in amygdala activity and corticolimbic connectivity during emotion processing have also been found in patients with schizophrenia [42, 43]. Meta-analytic findings suggest hypoactivation of the amygdala in response to emotional facial expressions compared to healthy controls [44], whereas more recent studies reported hyperactivation in response to neutral facial expressions [45, 46].…”