Probing the magnocellular and parvocellular visual pathways in facial emotion perception in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia patients have well-established deficits in facial emotion perception, which contribute to their poor social functioning. A number of studies have related these deficits to a differential dysfunction in the magnocellular (M) versus parvocellular (P) visual pathway. We assessed 35 schizophrenia patients and 35 healthy individuals on an emotion identification task, in which facial stimuli were either unaltered (broad spatial frequency, BSF) or manipulated to contain only high (HSF) or low (LSF) spatial frequencies, thereby respectively biasing the visual system toward the P- or M- pathways. As expected, patients were less accurate and slower in recognizing emotions across all conditions, relative to controls. Performance was best in the BSF condition followed by the HSF and finally the LSF condition, in both groups. A significant group by spatial frequency interaction reflected a smaller magnitude of impairment in the HSF condition, compared to the other two conditions that preferentially engage the M-system. These findings are consistent with studies showing a differential M-pathway abnormality in schizophrenia with a less pronounced impairment in P-function. The current study suggests that patients have less difficulty extracting emotional content from faces when LSFs are attenuated and supports the need to remediate basic visual processing deficits in schizophrenia.
Department of Veterans Affairs VISN-22 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. Electronic address: carol.jahshan@ucla.edu.
Carol
C
Jahshan
Department of Psychology and Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel. Electronic address: maorwolf@gmail.com.
Maor
M
Wolf
Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo, 2 Rabenu Yeruham St., Tel-Aviv Yaffo 61083, Israel. Electronic address: yinnonkarbi@yahoo.com.
Yinnon
Y
Karbi
Abarbanel Mental Health Center, 15 Keren-Kayement St., Bat Yam 59100, Israel. Electronic address: dreyalshamir@gmail.com.
Eyal
E
Shamir
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Department of Psychology and Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel. Electronic address: yurir@biu.ac.il.
Yuri
Y
Rassovsky
D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology*
Emotion recognition; Magnocellular; Parvocellular; Schizophrenia; Spatial frequency; Visual perception