Poster No:
752
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Rebecca Easter1, Emily Briceño2, Lisa Rapport3, Erin Kaufman4, Mindy Westlund Schreiner5, Melvin McInnis2, Scott Langenecker6
Institutions:
1Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 2University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 3Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, 4University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, UT, 5University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 6Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Facial emotion processing (FEP) is a complex and rapid set of interwoven and competing cognitive processes that involves attention, perception, evaluation, production of one's own emotion response to the stimulus, and regulation of that response. An intricate network of subcortical-cortical pathways is involved in supporting these processes. A predominately ventral brain system is implicated in stimulus appraisal and affective response production, whereas a predominately dorsal brain system underlies affect regulation and related behavior. These two systems interact with and modulate one another to effectively manage behavioral responses (Phillips et al., 2003; Langenecker et al., 2014).
Age and gender have been connected to FEP, wherein younger adults and women demonstrate better FEP than older adults and men respectively (Briceño et al., 2015; Wright et al., 2009). Additionally, FEP has been implicated in mood disorders, such that individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD: Krause, Linardatos, Fresco, & Moore, 2021) or bipolar disorder (BD: Vederman et al., 2011) demonstrate deficits in FEP compared to healthy controls (HC).
The goal of this study is to examine age, gender, and clinical effects of FEP in a large sample of HC and individuals with MDD or BD. We also aimed to identify key activation areas in the brain during FEP.
Methods:
1200 individuals (45% female; HC = 370, MDD = 318, BD = 516) completed a diagnostic interview and the Facial Emotion Perception Test (FEPT) at two sites. At one site, 39 individuals completed FEPT during functional MRI using a FE Signa 3T scanner. The fMRI series consisted of 30 contiguous oblique-axial sections 4mm thick using a forward/reverse spiral sequence. FEPT is a computerized test of FEP that involves rapid presentation of faces of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, or neutrality followed by a forced-choice selection. The test also includes a forced-choice identification of animals task.
We conducted regressions to examine the effects of age, gender, and clinical status on facial emotion processing accuracy, reaction time (RT), and efficiency (accuracy – RT). To investigate brain activation, comparisons were made between activation during the affective and animal FEPT tasks. Regression models were utilized to examine the relationships between age, gender, FEP, and brain activation within HC.
Results:
Education and age both predicted FEP, such that individuals with higher education and/or younger age presented with higher accuracy overall. Additionally, individuals with both MDD and BD performed worse than HC. Moreover, women, younger adults, and HC individuals had significantly faster reaction times and efficiency than men, older adults, and those with MDD and BD respectively.
Within HC, individuals demonstrated predominant activation in bilateral inferior and middle frontal gyri, bilateral amygdala and anterior hippocampus, and bilateral cuneus during the FEP task compared to the animal identification one. An effect of age on brain activation was also detected, such that older individuals demonstrated reduced activation in some areas, including in left middle insular and dorsal caudate and precuneus.
Conclusions:
Our findings replicate previous studies that age and gender are associated with FEP, such that women and younger individuals performed faster and more efficiently. Younger age and more education were also associated with higher accuracy. We also replicated the finding that individuals with MDD or BD demonstrate worse FEP than HC. Furthermore, we identified key areas of activation during FEP, including bilateral inferior and middle frontal gyri, amygdala, hippocampus, and cuneus. We only found a few activation differences in fusiform face areas, the left fusiform/parahippocampal gyrus. With increasing age, there was left lateralized decreases in activation in insula, precuneus, and dorsal caudate. Overall these results suggest that clinical and sociodemographic factors impact brain activation and FEP.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Psychiatric (eg. Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia) 2
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotional Perception 1
Social Cognition
Keywords:
Affective Disorders
Cognition
Emotions
Psychiatric
Psychiatric Disorders
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Phillips, M.L. (2003) Neurobiology of emotion perception I: The neural basis of normal emotion perception. Biol Psychiatry, 54(5), 504-514.
Langenecker, S.A. (2014). Current neural and behavioral dimensional constructs across mood disorders. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports, 1, 114-153.
Briceño, E.M. (2015). Age and gender modulate the neural circuitry supporting facial emotion processing in adults with major depressive disorder. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry, 23(3), 304-313.
Wright, S.L. (2009) Gender-specific disruptions in emotion processing in younger adults with depression. Depression Anxiety, 26(2), 182-189.
Krause, F.C. (2021). Facial emotion recognition in major depressive disorder: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 293, 320-328.
Vederman, A.C. (2012) Modality-specific alterations in the perception of emotional stimuli in Bipolar Disorder compared to Healthy Controls and Major Depressive Disorder. Cortex, 48(8), 1027-1034.