A temporal examination of co-activated emotion valence networks in schizophrenia and schizotypy.

Emotional abnormalities are prominent across the schizophrenia spectrum. To better define these abnormalities, we examined state emotional functions across opposing ends of the spectrum, notably in chronic outpatients with schizophrenia (Study 1) and college students with psychometrically defined schizotypy (Study 2). In line with existing studies, we predicted that individuals with schizophrenia would show unusually co-activated positive and negative emotions while college students with schizotypy would show abnormally low positive and abnormally high negative emotions. Drawing from the affective science literature, we employed continuous emotion ratings in response to a dynamic and evocatively "bittersweet" stimulus. Participants included 27 individuals with schizophrenia, 39 individuals with psychometrically defined schizotypy and 26 community and 35 college control participants. Participants continuously rated their state happiness and sadness throughout a six-minute clip from a tragicomic film (i.e., Life is Beautiful). In contrast to expectations as well as the extant literature, there were no state emotional abnormalities noted from either schizophrenia-spectrum group. Of particular note, neither individuals with schizophrenia nor individuals with schizotypy were abnormal in their experience of state negative, positive or coactivated emotions. Conversely, abnormalities in trait emotion were observed in both groups relative to their respective control groups. These results help confirm that the schizophrenia-spectrum is not characterized by deficits in state emotional experience and suggest that sadness is not abnormally co-activated with pleasant emotions. These results are critical for clarifying the "chronometry" of emotional dysfunctions across the schizophrenia-spectrum.

Movement abnormalities predict transitioning to psychosis in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis.

Improving upon the predictive validity of determining the transition from high risk to actual psychosis is a primary aim of early intervention research. Previous research has suggested that premorbid spontaneous dyskinesias may be one possible predictor. In this study, dyskinetic movements were assessed with the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) at baseline of a longitudinal study of 148 individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) of developing psychosis. Twenty-eight individuals transitioned to a psychotic disorder over the course of the study. Group comparisons between transitioned and non-transitioned individuals indicated that, relative to those that were not observed to transition, participants that developed a psychotic disorder exhibited greater spontaneous dyskinesias at baseline. Moreover, increased dyskinetic movements at baseline resulted in a more than two-fold increase in odds of developing a psychosis for each point increase in AIMS scale score. These findings suggest that individuals with greater premorbid dyskinetic movements may comprise a subset of CHR individuals at inordinate risk to decompensate into psychosis. Future work should employ assessments of spontaneous dyskinesias by instrumentation (e.g., electromyography) and look to ascertain whether specific dyskinesias (e.g., dystonia) or dyskinesias of specific body regions are associated with transitioning to psychosis.

Objective and subjective olfaction across the schizophrenia spectrum.

Much research indicates that patients with schizophrenia have impaired olfaction detection ability. However, studies of individuals with psychometrically defined schizotypy reveal mixed results-some document impairments while others do not. In addition to deficits in objective accuracy in olfaction for patients with schizophrenia, there has been an interest in subjective experience of olfaction. Unfortunately, methods of assessing accuracy and subjective hedonic olfactory evaluations in prior studies may not have been sensitive enough to detect group differences in this area. This study employed a measure of olfactory functioning featuring an expanded scoring system to assess both accuracy and subjective evaluations of pleasant and unpleasant experience. Data were collected for patients with schizophrenia, young adults with psychometrically defined schizotypy, psychiatric outpatients, and healthy controls. Results of this study indicate that both the schizophrenia and outpatient psychiatric groups showed similar levels of impaired olfaction ability; however, the schizotypy group was not impaired in olfaction detection. Interestingly, with regard to subjective hedonic evaluation, it was found that patients with schizophrenia did not differ from psychiatric outpatients, whereas individuals with schizotypy tended to rate smells as significantly less pleasant than healthy control participants. This suggests that subjective olfactory assessment is abnormal in some manner in schizotypy. It also suggests that accuracy of olfaction identification may be a characteristic of severe mental illness across severe mental illness diagnoses. The results are potentially important for understanding olfaction deficits across the mental illness spectrum.

Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief Revised: psychometric replication and extension.

The psychometric screening and detection of schizotypy through the use of concise self-report assessment instruments such as the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief Revised (SPQ-BR; Cohen, Matthews, Najolia, & Brown, 2010) enables an expeditious identification of individuals at putatively elevated risk to develop schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Using 2 large, culturally diverse, independent samples, this study expanded the psychometric evaluation of this instrument by presenting a series of confirmatory factor analyses; reviewing internal consistency reliabilities; and evaluating the construct validity of the scale by way of examining group differences in SPQ-BR scores between individuals with and without self-reported family histories of schizophrenia. The results indicate a 2-tier factor solution of the measure and indicate strong internal reliability for the scale. Findings regarding construct validity of the SPQ-BR are more variable with the Cognitive-Perceptual Deficits superordinate factor receiving the strongest evidentiary support. Limitations of this study and directions for future research are discussed.

Computerized facial analysis for understanding constricted/blunted affect: initial feasibility, reliability, and validity data.

Diminished expression is a diagnostic feature of a range of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders/conditions and is often unresponsive to treatment, is present across premorbid, first episode and various clinical states, and is considered a poor prognostic indicator. Surprisingly, little is known about diminished expression. The present study sought to address this issue by evaluating a commercially-available computerized facial analysis software for understanding diminished expressivity. We analyzed natural facial expression from a series of laboratory interaction tasks in 28 individuals with psychometric schizotypy - defined as the personality organization reflecting a putative genetic schizophrenia liability, and 26 matched controls. We evaluated (a) feasibility - defined in terms of the number of video frames recognized by the software, (b) reliability - defined in terms of correlations between facial expression variables across the three laboratory interactions, and (c) construct validity - defined in terms of relationships to clinical variables. For most subjects (~80%), approximately three-quarters of the video frames were analyzable by the software; however, a minority of the videos were essentially unreadable. The facial expression variables showed excellent reliability across interaction conditions. In terms of construct validity, facial expression variables were significantly related to a measure of psychoticism, tapping subjective cognitive concerns and "first-rank" schizophrenia symptoms, but were generally not different between groups. Facial expression variables were generally not significantly related to measures of depression, anxiety, paranoia or, surprisingly, self-reported negative schizotypy. While computerized facial analysis appears to be a reliable and promising method of understanding diminished expressivity across the schizophrenia-spectrum, some work remains. Implications are discussed.

Preschoolers use emotion in speech to learn new words.

Two experiments examined 4- and 5-year-olds' use of vocal affect to learn new words. In Experiment 1 (n = 48), children were presented with two unfamiliar objects, first in their original state and then in an altered state (broken or enhanced). An instruction produced with negative, neutral, or positive affect, directed children to find the referent of a novel word. During the novel noun, eye gaze measures indicated that both 4- and 5-year-olds were more likely to consider an object congruent with vocal affect cues. In Experiment 2, 5-year-olds (n = 15) were asked to extend and generalize their initial mapping to new exemplars. Here, 5-year-olds generalized these newly mapped labels but only when presented with negative vocal affect.

On "risk" and reward: investigating state anhedonia in psychometrically defined schizotypy and schizophrenia.

Anhedonia, defined as dysfunction in the experience of pleasant emotions, is a hallmark symptom of the schizophrenia spectrum. Of interest, it is well documented that patients with schizophrenia, at least as a group, do not show reductions in their state experience of pleasant stimuli. However, there is emerging evidence to suggest that individuals with schizotypy--defined as the personality organization reflecting the latent vulnerability for schizophrenia--do show these state deficits. This is paradoxical in that schizophrenia reflects a more pathological state in virtually every conceivable domain as compared with schizotypy. The present study examined self-reported affective reactions to neutral-, bad-, and good-valenced stimuli in individuals with psychometrically defined schizotypy and schizophrenia. Two separate control groups were also included, comprising psychometrically defined controls and stable outpatients with affective disorders. With no exceptions, the schizotypy group reported significantly less pleasant affect for each of the three conditions than each of the other groups. Conversely, the schizophrenia group did not statistically differ from the control groups for any of the conditions. Within both the schizotypy and schizophrenia groups, severity of negative symptoms/traits was associated with less pleasant report. We found that individuals with prominent negative symptoms and traits from the schizophrenia and schizotypy groups resembled each other in terms of state anhedonia. The present findings did not appear to reflect comorbid depression or anxiety. Our discussion centers on this apparent paradox in the schizophrenia spectrum--that individuals with schizotypy exhibit state anhedonia, whereas patients with schizophrenia do not.