title: Selective attention to emotional cues and emotion recognition in healthy subjects: the role of mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation.
abstract: Selective attention toward emotional cues and emotion recognition of facial expressions are important aspects of social cognition. Stress modulates social cognition through cortisol, which acts on glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) in the brain.
  
  
  
  We examined the role of MR activation on attentional bias toward emotional cues and on emotion recognition.
  
  
  
  We included 40 healthy young women and 40 healthy young men (mean age 23.9 ± 3.3), who either received 0.4 mg of the MR agonist fludrocortisone or placebo. A dot-probe paradigm was used to test for attentional biases toward emotional cues (happy and sad faces). Moreover, we used a facial emotion recognition task to investigate the ability to recognize emotional valence (anger and sadness) from facial expression in four graded categories of emotional intensity (20, 30, 40, and 80 %).
  
  
  
  In the emotional dot-probe task, we found a main effect of treatment and a treatment × valence interaction. Post hoc analyses revealed an attentional bias away from sad faces after placebo intake and a shift in selective attention toward sad faces compared to placebo. We found no attentional bias toward happy faces after fludrocortisone or placebo intake. In the facial emotion recognition task, there was no main effect of treatment.
  
  
  
  MR stimulation seems to be important in modulating quick, automatic emotional processing, i.e., a shift in selective attention toward negative emotional cues. Our results confirm and extend previous findings of MR function. However, we did not find an effect of MR stimulation on emotion recognition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany. Katharina.Schultebraucks@charite.de.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schultebraucks
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Deuter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Moritz
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Duesenberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schulze
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hellmann-Regen
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Domke
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Universität Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lockenvitz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Linn K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Kuehl
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Otte
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wingenfeld
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000786:Anger; D001288:Attention / Q000187:drug effects*; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000187:drug effects*; D005260:Female; D005438:Fludrocortisone / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006240:Happiness; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018161:Receptors, Mineralocorticoid / Q000819:agonists*; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D018161:Receptors, Mineralocorticoid; D005438:Fludrocortisone
keywords: Cortisol; Emotion recognition; Fludrocortisone; Mineralocorticoid receptor; Selective attention; Stress