Cortical differences in emotional processing in schizophrenia

EDUAR HERRERA; RODRIGO RIVEROS; ESTEBAN HURTADO; EZEQUIEL GLEICHGERRCHT; HUGO URQUINA; LUCIA AMORUSO; MIGDYRAI MARTIN REYES; FACUNDO MANES; AGUSTÍN IBÁÑEZ

Congreso; XII Congreso de la Sociedad Latinoaméricana de Neuropsicología; 2011

In order to examine the way in which ERPs of emotional processing could be involved in emotional face discrimination, diagnosed schizophrenia probands, unaffected first-degree relatives, and control subjects matched by age, gender and educational level, performed a categorization task which involved pleasant and unpleasant words, along with faces of anger and happiness. Presented with comparisons of stimulus type (face vs words) and a valence (positive vs. negative) task. N170 component, while present in relatives and control subjects, was reduced in patients, not only for faces, but also for face-word differences, suggesting a deficit in structural processing of stimuli. Control subjects showed N170 modulation according to the valence of facial stimuli. However, this discrimination effect was found to be reduced in both patients and relatives. Results strongly suggest a generalized deficit affecting the structural encoding of faces in patients, as well as the emotion discrimination in both patients and relatives.