Recognition of facial expressions of emotion in panic disorder.
BACKGROUND
Whether patients with panic disorder behave differently or not when recognizing the facial expressions of emotion remains unsettled.


METHODS
We tested 21 outpatients with panic disorder and 34 healthy subjects, with a photo set from the Matsumoto and Ekman Japanese and Caucasian facial expressions of emotion, which includes anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.


RESULTS
Compared to the healthy subjects, patients showed lower accuracies when recognizing disgust and fear, but a higher accuracy when recognizing surprise.


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that the altered specificity to these emotions leads tso self-awareness mechanisms to prevent further emotional reactions in panic disorder patients.
Department of Psychiatry, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
Liqiang
L
Cai
Wanzhen
W
Chen
Yuedi
Y
Shen
Xinling
X
Wang
Lili
L
Wei
Yingchun
Y
Zhang
Wei
W
Wang
Wei
W
Chen
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception