Neural circuitry of masked emotional face processing in youth with bipolar disorder, severe mood dysregulation, and healthy volunteers.
Youth with bipolar disorder (BD) and those with severe, non-episodic irritability (severe mood dysregulation, SMD) show face-emotion labeling deficits. These groups differ from healthy volunteers (HV) in neural responses to emotional faces. It is unknown whether awareness is required to elicit these differences. We compared activation in BD (N=20), SMD (N=18), and HV (N=22) during "Aware" and "Non-aware" priming of shapes by emotional faces. Subjects rated how much they liked the shape. In aware, a face (angry, fearful, happy, neutral, blank oval) appeared (187 ms) before the shape. In non-aware, a face appeared (17 ms), followed by a mask (170 ms), and shape. A Diagnosis-by-Awareness-by-Emotion ANOVA was not significant. There were significant Diagnosis-by-Awareness interactions in occipital regions. BD and SMD showed increased activity for non-aware vs. aware; HV showed the reverse pattern. When subjects viewed angry or neutral faces, there were Emotion-by-Diagnosis interactions in face-emotion processing regions, including the L precentral gyrus, R posterior cingulate, R superior temporal gyrus, R middle occipital gyrus, and L medial frontal gyrus. Regardless of awareness, BD and SMD differ in activation patterns from HV and each other in multiple brain regions, suggesting that BD and SMD are distinct developmental mood disorders.
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, United States; Office of the Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethesda, MD, United States. Electronic address: tlaura@mail.nih.gov.
Laura A
LA
Thomas
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Melissa A
MA
Brotman
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Brian L
BL
Bones
Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Gang
G
Chen
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Brooke H
BH
Rosen
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Daniel S
DS
Pine
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Ellen
E
Leibenluft
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D000786:Anger; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology
Adolescence; Affective priming; Backwards masking; Bipolar disorder; Functional neuroimaging; Mood disorder