Is There Any Relation Between Impaired Emotion Perception and Thought Disorder in Schizophrenia?

INTRODUCTION: Many patients with schizophrenia demonstrate an impaired recognition of emotions as well as thought disorder. However, there may be a correlation between these core impairment domains of schizophrenia. The objective of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the perception of emotion and thought disturbance in schizophrenia. METHODS: The sample consisted of 53 patients with schizophrenia and 38 healthy controls. The Emotions Battery of the University of Pennsylvania Computerised Neuropsychological Test Battery (PennCNP) and the Thought Language Index (TLI) were used to examine the association of the perception of emotion and thought disorders. RESULTS: Statistical analyses revealed that patients with schizophrenia had poor performance on the recognition of happy, sad, fear, anger, and neutral facial emotion expressions compared to controls. Severity of negative and disorganisation symptoms in schizophrenia patients was found to be related to negative emotions (fear, anger, etc.). Moreover, results revealed that disorganised thoughts are related to misidentification of positive emotions (happy). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggested that emotion perception disturbances could be associated with disorganised thought in schizophrenia. Impaired recognition and misinterpretation of positive emotions may contribute to the occurrence of disorganised thought.

Vestibular migraine patients are more anxious than migraine patients without vestibular symptoms.

The link between vertigo and anxiety is well known. The aim of this study is to compare anxiety disorders in 3 groups: patients with vestibular migraine (VM), patients with migraine but without vertigo (MO) and healthy controls (HC).We performed cross-sectional analysis of following tests: (a) Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA); (b) State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-X1 and STAI-X2); (c) Beck Depression Inventory (BDI); (d) Panic-Agoraphobic Scale and (e) Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ). ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis and Chi-square tests were used for comparisons and least significant difference was used for further post-hoc analysis. There were 35 definite VM patients, 31 MO patients and 32 volunteer HC. There were no significant differences between three groups in age, total years of education or duration of headaches in VM and MO patients. On the other hand, vertigo severity  was moderately and positively correlated with headache severity and with headache duration. There were significant differences in scores of HARS, BDI, PSWQ, and various PAS-R sub-scales between the three groups. Our study shows that VM patients are significantly more anxious and agoraphobic than MO patients and HC, displaying higher sensitivity to separation and being more prone to seeking medical reassurance.