INTRODUCTION: Anxiety disorders in adults involve aberrant processing of emotional information that is hypothesized to reflect perturbations in the amygdala. This study examines the relationship between face-emotion recognition and anxiety in a sample of children and adolescents participating in a brain-imaging study of amygdala structure and function. METHODS: This study recruited 15 children and adolescents with ongoing anxiety disorders and 11 psychiatrically healthy comparisons group-matched on age, gender, and IQ. Face-emotion recognition was assessed using the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Scale (DANVA). RESULTS: Children and adolescents with anxiety disorders exhibited significantly poorer performance on the face-emotion recognition task compared to healthy controls (z = 2.2; p < 0.05). This difference was found only for expressions posed by adults but not children. DISCUSSION: Reduced accuracy on a face-emotion recognition test is consistent with perturbed amygdala function in pediatric anxiety disorders. CONCLUSION: As this study was conducted in a sample undergoing a neuroimaging investigation of amygdala integrity, future analyses will examine associations among amygdala function, clinical anxiety, and face-recognition abilities.
INTRODUCTION:Anxiety disorders in adults involve aberrant processing of emotional information that is hypothesized to reflect perturbations in the amygdala. This study examines the relationship between face-emotion recognition and anxiety in a sample of children and adolescents participating in a brain-imaging study of amygdala structure and function. METHODS: This study recruited 15 children and adolescents with ongoing anxiety disorders and 11 psychiatrically healthy comparisons group-matched on age, gender, and IQ. Face-emotion recognition was assessed using the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Scale (DANVA). RESULTS:Children and adolescents with anxiety disorders exhibited significantly poorer performance on the face-emotion recognition task compared to healthy controls (z = 2.2; p < 0.05). This difference was found only for expressions posed by adults but not children. DISCUSSION: Reduced accuracy on a face-emotion recognition test is consistent with perturbed amygdala function in pediatric anxiety disorders. CONCLUSION: As this study was conducted in a sample undergoing a neuroimaging investigation of amygdala integrity, future analyses will examine associations among amygdala function, clinical anxiety, and face-recognition abilities.
Authors: Karen E Seymour; Richard N Jones; Grace K Cushman; Thania Galvan; Megan E Puzia; Kerri L Kim; Anthony Spirito; Daniel P Dickstein Journal: Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry Date: 2015-06-06 Impact factor: 4.785
Authors: Eric Bui; Eric Anderson; Elizabeth M Goetter; Allison A Campbell; Laura E Fischer; Lisa Feldman Barrett; Naomi M Simon Journal: Cogn Emot Date: 2015-09-23
Authors: Autumn Kujawa; Minjie Wu; Heide Klumpp; Daniel S Pine; James E Swain; Kate D Fitzgerald; Christopher S Monk; K Luan Phan Journal: Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging Date: 2016-07
Authors: Bethany C Reeb-Sutherland; Lela Rankin Williams; Kathryn A Degnan; Koraly Pérez-Edgar; Andrea Chronis-Tuscano; Ellen Leibenluft; Daniel S Pine; Seth D Pollak; Nathan A Fox Journal: Cogn Emot Date: 2014-05-06