title: Does comorbid anxiety counteract emotion recognition deficits in conduct disorder?
abstract: Previous research has reported altered emotion recognition in both conduct disorder (CD) and anxiety disorders (ADs) - but these effects appear to be of different kinds. Adolescents with CD often show a generalised pattern of deficits, while those with ADs show hypersensitivity to specific negative emotions. Although these conditions often cooccur, little is known regarding emotion recognition performance in comorbid CD+ADs. Here, we test the hypothesis that in the comorbid case, anxiety-related emotion hypersensitivity counteracts the emotion recognition deficits typically observed in CD.
  
  
  
  We compared facial emotion recognition across four groups of adolescents aged 12-18 years: those with CD alone (n = 28), ADs alone (n = 23), cooccurring CD+ADs (n = 20) and typically developing controls (n = 28). The emotion recognition task we used systematically manipulated the emotional intensity of facial expressions as well as fixation location (eye, nose or mouth region).
  
  
  
  Conduct disorder was associated with a generalised impairment in emotion recognition; however, this may have been modulated by group differences in IQ. AD was associated with increased sensitivity to low-intensity happiness, disgust and sadness. In general, the comorbid CD+ADs group performed similarly to typically developing controls.
  
  
  
  Although CD alone was associated with emotion recognition impairments, ADs and comorbid CD+ADs were associated with normal or enhanced emotion recognition performance. The presence of comorbid ADs appeared to counteract the effects of CD, suggesting a potentially protective role, although future research should examine the contribution of IQ and gender to these effects.
authors.affiliation: Academic Unit of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Roxanna M L
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Short
authors.affiliation: Academic Unit of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.|Department of Experimental, Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Edmund J S
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Sonuga-Barke
authors.affiliation: Academic Unit of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Wendy J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: Academic Unit of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Graeme
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fairchild
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D041923:Adolescent Development / Q000502:physiology*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D015897:Comorbidity; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male
keywords: Conduct disorder; anxiety disorder; callous-unemotional traits; comorbidity; emotion recognition; response biases; social information processing