Deficits in facial affect recognition in unaffected siblings of Xhosa schizophrenia patients: evidence for a neurocognitive endophenotype.
The present study in an African Xhosa sample examined whether familial vulnerability to schizophrenia is associated with deficits in facial affect recognition. Healthy comparison subjects, unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients, and schizophrenia patients were tested with a task requiring rapid recognition of matched positive (happy), negative (angry), and neutral facial expressions. Siblings and patients demonstrated impaired recognition of negative relative to positive facial expressions whereas comparison subjects recognized negative and positive expressions at an equal level of accuracy. These results suggest that deficits in the processing negative affect from social cues are transmitted in families and may represent a heritable endophenotype of schizophrenia.
Human Information Processing Laboratory, Department of Psychology, FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. jukka.leppanen@uta.fi
Jukka M
JM
Leppänen
Dana J H
DJ
Niehaus
Liezl
L
Koen
Elsa
E
Du Toit
Renata
R
Schoeman
Robin
R
Emsley
D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010641:Phenotype; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000235:genetics; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012569:Schizotypal Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D035781:Siblings; D013019:South Africa