Facial affect recognition training in autism: can we animate the fusiform gyrus?

One of the most consistent findings in the neuroscience of autism is hypoactivation of the fusiform gyrus (FG) during face processing. In this study the authors examined whether successful facial affect recognition training is associated with an increased activation of the FG in autism. The effect of a computer-based program to teach facial affect identification was examined in 10 individuals with high-functioning autism. Blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) changes in the FG and other regions of interest, as well as behavioral facial affect recognition measures, were assessed pre- and posttraining. No significant activation changes in the FG were observed. Trained participants showed behavioral improvements, which were accompanied by higher BOLD fMRI signals in the superior parietal lobule and maintained activation in the right medial occipital gyrus.

The effects of gender and COMT Val158Met polymorphism on fearful facial affect recognition:a fMRI study

The functional catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT Val108/158Met) polymorphism has been shown to have an impact on tasks of executive function, memory and attention and recently, tasks with an affective component. As oestrogen reduces COMT activity, we focused on the interaction between gender and COMT genotype on brain activations during an affective processing task. We used functional MRI (fMRI) to record brain activations from 74 healthy subjects who engaged in a facial affect recognition task; subjects viewed and identified fearful compared to neutral faces. There was no main effect of the COMT polymorphism, gender or genotypegender interaction on task performance. We found a significant effect of gender on brain activations in the left amygdala and right temporal pole, where females demonstrated increased activations over males. Within these regions, Val/Val carriers showed greater signal magnitude compared to Met/Met carriers, particularly in females. The COMT Val108/158Met polymorphism impacts on gender-related patterns of activation in limbic and paralimbic regions but the functional significance of any oestrogen-related COMT inhibition appears modest. Copyright © 2008 CINP.

Pilot investigation of the changes in cortical activation during facial affect recognition with lamotrigine monotherapy in bipolar disorder

Background: Bipolar disorder is associated with dysfunction in prefrontal and limbic areas implicated in emotional processing. Aims: To explore whether lamotrigine monotherapy may exert its action by improving the function of the neural network involved in emotional processing. Method: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine changes in brain activation during a sad facial affect recognition task in 12 stable patients with bipolar disorder when medication-free compared with healthy controls and after 12 weeks of lamotrigine monotherapy. Results: At baseline, compared with controls, patients with bipolar disorder showed overactivity in temporal regions and underactivity in the dorsal medial and right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and the dorsal cingulate gyrus. Following lamotrigine monotherapy, patients demonstrated reduced temporal and increased prefrontal activation. Conclusions: This preliminary evidence suggests that lamotrigine may enhance the function of the neural circuitry involved in affect recognition.

Emotion recognition from dynamic emotional displays following anterior cingulotomy and anterior capsulotomy for chronic depression

Four patients that had received an anterior cingulotomy (ACING) and five patients that had received both an ACING and an anterior capsulotomy (ACAPS) as an intervention for chronic, treatment refractory depression were presented with a series of dynamic emotional stimuli and invited to identify the emotion portrayed. Their performance was compared with that of a group of non-surgically treated patients with major depression (n = 17) and with a group of matched, never-depressed controls (n = 22). At the time of testing, four of the nine neurosurgery patients had recovered from their depressive episode, whereas five remained depressed. Analysis of emotion recognition accuracy revealed no significant differences between depressed and non-depressed neurosurgically treated patients. Similarly, no significant differences were observed between the patients treated with ACING alone and those treated with both ACING and ACAPS. Comparison of the emotion recognition accuracy of the neurosurgically treated patients and the depressed and healthy control groups revealed that the surgically treated patients exhibited a general impairment in their recognition accuracy compared to healthy controls. Regression analysis revealed that participants' emotion recognition accuracy was predicted by the number of errors they made on the Stroop colour-naming task. It is plausible that the observed deficit in emotion recognition accuracy was a consequence of impaired attentional control, which may have been a result of the surgical lesions to the anterior cingulate cortex. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Emotion recognition and alexithymia in females with non-clinical disordered eating

Objectives: The aims were to determine if emotion recognition deficits observed in eating disorders generalise to non-clinical disordered eating and to establish if other psychopathological and personality factors contributed to, or accounted for, these deficits. Design: Females with high (n=23) and low (n=22) scores on the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) were assessed on their ability to recognise emotion from videotaped social interactions. Participants also completed a face memory task, a Stroop task, and self-report measures of alexithymia, depression and anxiety. Results: Relative to the low EDI group, high EDI participants exhibited a general deficit in recognition of emotion, which was related to their scores on the alexithymia measure and the bulimia subscale of the EDI. They also exhibited a specific deficit in the recognition of anger, which was related to their scores on the body dissatisfaction subscale of the EDI. Conclusions: In line with clinical eating disorders, non-clinical disordered eating is associated with emotion recognition deficits. However, the nature of these deficits appears to be dependent upon the type of eating psychopathology and the degree of co-morbid alexithymia.

An approach to emotion recognition in single-channel EEG signals: a mother child interaction

In this work, we perform a first approach to emotion recognition from EEG single channel signals extracted in four (4) mother-child dyads experiment in developmental psychology -- Single channel EEG signals are analyzed and processed using several window sizes by performing a statistical analysis over features in the time and frequency domains -- Finally, a neural network obtained an average accuracy rate of 99% of classification in two emotional states such as happiness and sadness

Multiresolution analysis (discrete wavelet transform) through Daubechies family for emotion recognition in speech

We propose a study of the mathematical properties of voice as an audio signal -- This work includes signals in which the channel conditions are not ideal for emotion recognition -- Multiresolution analysis- discrete wavelet transform – was performed through the use of Daubechies Wavelet Family (Db1-Haar, Db6, Db8, Db10) allowing the decomposition of the initial audio signal into sets of coefficients on which a set of features was extracted and analyzed statistically in order to differentiate emotional states -- ANNs proved to be a system that allows an appropriate classification of such states -- This study shows that the extracted features using wavelet decomposition are enough to analyze and extract emotional content in audio signals presenting a high accuracy rate in classification of emotional states without the need to use other kinds of classical frequency-time features -- Accordingly, this paper seeks to characterize mathematically the six basic emotions in humans: boredom, disgust, happiness, anxiety, anger and sadness, also included the neutrality, for a total of seven states to identify

Effects of sex hormonal levels and phases of the menstrual cycle in the processing of emotional faces

Several neuropsychiatry disorders have shown a sexual dimorphism in their incidence, symptom profile and therapeutic response. A better understanding of the impact of sex hormones in emotional processing sexual dimorphism could bring tight to this important clinical finding. Some studies have provided evidence of sex differences in the identification of emotional faces, however, results are inconsistent and such inconsistency could be related to the lack of experimental control of the sex hormone status of participants. More recently, a few studies evaluated the modulation of facial emotion recognition by the phase of the menstrual cycle and sex hormones, however, none of them directly compared these results with a group of men. We evaluated the accuracy of facial emotion recognition in 40 healthy volunteers. Eleven women were assigned to early follicular group, nine women to the ovulatory group and 10 women to luteal group, depending on the phase of menstrual cycle, and a group of 10 men were also evaluated. Estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels were assessed. The performance of the groups in the identification of emotional faces varied depending on the emotion. Early follicular group were more accurate to perceive angry faces than all other groups. Sadness was more accurately recognized by early follicular group than by luteal group and regarding the recognition of fearful faces a trend to a better performance and a significantly higher accuracy was observed, respectively, in the early follicular group and in the ovulatory group, in comparison to men. In women, estrogen negatively correlated to the accuracy in perception of angry mate faces. Our results indicate sex hormones to be implicated in a sexual dimorphism in facial emotion recognition, and highlight the importance of estrogen specifically in the recognition of negative emotions such as sadness, anger and fear. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Empatia no desenvolvimento típico: relação entre autorrelatos e comportamentos empáticos

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Psicologia

Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic effects of methylphenidate and MDMA administered alone or in combination.

Methylphenidate and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 'ecstasy') are widely misused psychoactive drugs. Methylphenidate increases brain dopamine and norepinephrine levels by blocking the presynaptic reuptake transporters. MDMA releases serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine through the same transporters. Pharmacodynamic interactions of methylphenidate and MDMA are likely. This study compared the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic effects of methylphenidate and MDMA administered alone or in combination in healthy subjects using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design. Methylphenidate did not enhance the psychotropic effects of MDMA, although it produced psychostimulant effects on its own. The haemodynamic and adverse effects of co-administration of methylphenidate and MDMA were significantly higher compared with MDMA or methylphenidate alone. Methylphenidate did not change the pharmacokinetics of MDMA and vice versa. Methylphenidate and MDMA shared some subjective amphetamine-type effects; however, 125 mg of MDMA increased positive mood more than 60 mg of methylphenidate, and methylphenidate enhanced activity and concentration more than MDMA. Methylphenidate and MDMA differentially altered facial emotion recognition. Methylphenidate enhanced the recognition of sad and fearful faces, whereas MDMA reduced the recognition of negative emotions. Additionally, the present study found acute pharmacodynamic tolerance to MDMA but not methylphenidate. In conclusion, the combined use of methylphenidate and MDMA does not produce more psychoactive effects compared with either drug alone, but potentially enhances cardiovascular and adverse effects. The findings may be of clinical importance for assessing the risks of combined psychostimulant misuse. Trial registration identification number: NCT01465685 (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01465685).

Estudo de associação entre déficits de reconhecimento de emoções em faces, flexibilidade mental e adequação social, em pacientes com transtorno bipolar do tipo I eutímicos, comparados com controles normais

Introdução: O objetivo do estudo foi investigar se há associação entre déficits na capacidade de reconhecimento de emoções faciais e déficits na flexibilidade mental e na adequação social em pacientes com Transtorno Bipolar do tipo I eutímicos quando comparados a sujeitos controles sem transtorno mental. Métodos: 65 pacientes com Transtorno Bipolar do tipo I eutímicos e 95 controles sem transtorno mental, foram avaliados no reconhecimento de emoções faciais, na flexibilidade mental e na adequação social através de avaliações clínicas e neuropsicológicas. Os sintomas afetivos foram avaliados através da Escala de Depressão de Hamilton e da Escala de Mania de Young, o reconhecimento de emoções faciais através da Facial Expressions of Emotion: Stimuli and Tests, a flexibilidade mental avaliada através do Wisconsin Card Sorting Test e a adequação social através da Escala de Auto- Avaliação de Adequação Social. Resultados: Pacientes com Transtorno Bipolar do tipo I eutímicos apresentam uma associação de maior intensidade comparativamente aos controles entre o reconhecimento de emoções faciais e a flexibilidade mental, indicando que quanto mais preservada a flexibilidade mental, melhor será a habilidade para reconhecer emoções faciais Neste grupo às correlações de todas as emoções são positivas com o total de acertos e as categorias e são negativas com as respostas perseverativas, total de erros, erros perseverativos e erros não perseverativos. Não houve uma correlação entre o reconhecimento de emoções faciais e a adequação social, apesar dos pacientes com Transtorno Bipolar do tipo I eutímicos apresentar uma pior adequação social, sinalizando que a pior adequação social não parece ser devida a uma dificuldade em reconhecer e interpretar adequadamente as expressões faciais. Os pacientes com Transtorno Bipolar do tipo I eutímicos não apresentam diferenças significativas no reconhecimento de emoções faciais em relação aos controles, entretanto no subteste surpresa (p=0,080) as diferenças estão no limite da significância estatística, indicando que portadores de transtorno bipolar do tipo I eutímicos tendem a apresentar um pior desempenho no reconhecimento da emoção surpresa em relação aos controles. Conclusão: Nossos resultados reforçam a hipótese de que existe uma associação entre o reconhecimento de emoções faciais e a preservação do funcionamento executivo, mais precisamente a flexibilidade mental, indicando que quanto maior a flexibilidade mental, melhor será a habilidade para reconhecer emoções faciais e melhorar o desempenho funcional do paciente. Pacientes bipolares do tipo I eutímicos apresentam uma pior adequação social quando comparados aos controles, o que pode ser uma consequência do Transtorno Bipolar que ratifica a necessidade de uma intervenção terapêutica rápida e eficaz nestes pacientes

Estudo de associação entre disfunção neurocognitiva, estresse oxidativa e polimorfismos em pacientes jovens com Transtornos Bipolar tipo I

O Transtorno Bipolar (TB) tipo I é uma doença caracterizada por episódios de mania e depressão recorrentes com importante prejuízo do funcionamento global e comprometimento das funções cognitivas. Além disso, sabe-se que o número de episódios de humor patológico ao longo da vida pode também influenciar o funcionamento cognitivo destes sujeitos. Neste cenário, ocorreu a necessidade de se investigar marcadores genéticos para disfunção cognitiva no TB com o objetivo de estudar este fenômeno. Dentre os potenciais genes responsáveis por influenciar a cognição destacam-se os polimorfismos funcionais do fator neurotrófico derivado do cérebro (BDNF), da catecol-O-metiltransferase (COMT), da apolipoproteína-E (APOE) e do canal de cálcio de baixa voltagem subunidade 1-C (CACNA1C). Sabe-se, também, que no TB os marcadores de estresse oxidativo estão aumentados durante todas as fases da doença, entretanto, não é claro qual impacto destes na disfunção cognitiva de indivíduos com TB. O objetivo dessa tese foi avaliar o desempenho cognitivo de pacientes jovens com bipolaridade tipo I e sua associação com o genótipo de BDNF, COMT, APOE e CACNA1C e também com os níveis plasmáticos de oxidação da guanosina (8-OHdG) e citosina (5-Mec) durante os episódios de humor, eutimia e em controles. Para investigar essa associação foram incluídos 116 pacientes (79 em episódio de humor patológico e 37 eutímicos) com diagnóstico de TB tipo I (DSMIV-TR); 97 controles saudáveis foram submetidos à avaliação neuropsicológica e coleta de sangue para extração de DNA visando genotipagem para BDNF (rs6265), COMT (rs4680; rs165599), APOE (rs429358 e rs7412), CACNA1C (rs1006737), 8-OhdG e 5-Mec. A análise dos dados obtidos revelou que pacientes portadores do genótipo Met/Met rs4680/rs165599 do COMT apresentam comprometimento cognitivo mais grave (função executiva, fluência verbal, memória e inteligência) comparado ao genótipo Val/Met ou Val/Val durante episódios maníacos ou mistos. Na mesma direção destes resultados, verificou-se que pacientes portadores do alelo Met rs4680 do COMT apresentam comprometimento do reconhecimento de emoções faciais em episódios de mania e depressão. Nenhum efeito do COMT foi observado em controles. O alelo de risco Met do CACNA1C se associou a um pior comprometimento executivo independente dos sintomas maníacos ou depressivos no TB, porém nenhum efeito se observou nos controles. O alelo Met do BDNF rs6265 ou a presença do alelo 4 da APOE não representa um fator que identifique um grupo com desempenho cognitivo diferenciado durante as fases do TB ou em controles. Sujeitos com TB apresentaram níveis mais elevados de 8-OHdG e tais níveis eram diretamente proporcionais ao número de episódios maníacos ao longo da vida, sugerindo um papel dos episódios hiperdopaminérgicos na oxidação das bases de DNA. Concluiu-se que a genotipagem para COMT e CACNA1C em pacientes com TB pode identificar um grupo de pacientes associados a pior disfunção cognitiva durante as fases maníacas e mistas do TB. Tal dado pode ser um indicador do envolvimento do sistema dopaminérgico e dos canais de cálcio de baixa voltagem na fisiopatologia da disfunção cognitiva no TB e deve ser explorado em outros estudos

The influence of variations in eating disorder-related symptoms on processing of emotional faces in a non-clinical female sample:an eye-tracking study

This study aimed to: i) determine if the attention bias towards angry faces reported in eating disorders generalises to a non-clinical sample varying in eating disorder-related symptoms; ii) examine if the bias occurs during initial orientation or later strategic processing; and iii) confirm previous findings of impaired facial emotion recognition in non-clinical disordered eating. Fifty-two females viewed a series of face-pairs (happy or angry paired with neutral) whilst their attentional deployment was continuously monitored using an eye-tracker. They subsequently identified the emotion portrayed in a separate series of faces. The highest (n=18) and lowest scorers (n=17) on the Eating Disorders Inventory (EDI) were compared on the attention and facial emotion recognition tasks. Those with relatively high scores exhibited impaired facial emotion recognition, confirming previous findings in similar non-clinical samples. They also displayed biased attention away from emotional faces during later strategic processing, which is consistent with previously observed impairments in clinical samples. These differences were related to drive-for-thinness. Although we found no evidence of a bias towards angry faces, it is plausible that the observed impairments in emotion recognition and avoidance of emotional faces could disrupt social functioning and act as a risk factor for the development of eating disorders.