An examination of autonomic and facial responses to prototypical facial emotion expressions in psychopathy.

Meta-analyses have found that people high in psychopathy categorize (or "recognize") others' prototypical facial emotion expressions with reduced accuracy. However, these have been contested with remaining questions regarding the strength, specificity, and mechanisms of this ability in psychopathy. In addition, few studies have tested holistically whether psychopathy is related to reduced facial mimicry or autonomic arousal in response to others' dynamic facial expressions. Therefore, the current study presented 6 s videos of a target person making prototypical emotion expressions (anger, fear, disgust, sadness, joy, and neutral) to N = 88 incarcerated adult males while recording facial electromyography, skin conductance response (SCR), and heart rate. Participants identified the emotion category and rated the valence and intensity of the target person's emotion. Psychopathy was assessed via the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). We predicted that overall PCL-R scores and scores for the interpersonal/affective traits, in particular, would be related to reduced emotion categorization accuracy, valence ratings, intensity ratings, facial mimicry, SCR amplitude, and cardiac deceleration in response to the prototypical facial emotion expressions. In contrast to our hypotheses, PCL-R scores were unrelated to emotion categorization accuracy, valence ratings, and intensity ratings. Stimuli failed to elicit facial mimicry from the full sample, which does not allow drawing conclusions about the relationship between psychopathy and facial mimicry. However, participants displayed general autonomic arousal responses, but not to prototypical emotion expressions per se. PCL-R scores were also unrelated to SCR and cardiac deceleration. These findings failed to identify aberrant behavioral and physiological responses to prototypical facial emotion expressions in relation to psychopathy.

Correlates of externalizing psychopathology in incarcerated men.

Externalizing traits are extremely costly for society and disproportionately prevalent among incarcerated individuals. The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) is an empirically derived classification system that approaches psychopathology dimensionally and was developed in response to critiques of current diagnostic classification systems. The Externalizing Spectrum Inventory-100 item version (ESI-100) is an assessment of externalizing problems that fits within the HiTOP framework and characterizes dimensional externalizing traits. The present study aimed to replicate prior research examining the convergent validity of the ESI Total Score by examining associations with psychopathy, conduct disorder, and substance use among incarcerated males. A total of 1,808 participants had ESI-100 data, although sample sizes across criterion measures varied. The majority of results replicated relationships between the ESI 159-item version and externalizing disorders and negative emotionality. Less is known about the dimensional relationships between externalizing traits as measured by the ESI-100 and internalizing disorders and symptoms, and other correlates of externalizing. The study extended previous results by examining associations between the ESI-100 and internalizing disorders, impulsivity, childhood trauma, and emotion regulation (ER) as a test of discriminant validity. Analyses revealed associations between the ESI-100 and childhood trauma, impulsivity, emotion regulation difficulties, and symptoms (but not diagnoses) of internalizing disorders. These results enhance our understanding of dimensional traits of externalizing and suggest nuanced relationships between externalizing and internalizing traits. Results have important implications (e.g., transdiagnostic treatment targets) for treatment of mental health disorders by highlighting the importance of cross-diagnostic treatment approaches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Negative Autobiographical Memory in Depression Reflects Elevated Amygdala-Hippocampal Reactivity and Hippocampally Associated Emotion Regulation.

BACKGROUND: Dysregulated autobiographical recall is observed in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, it is unknown whether people with MDD show abnormalities in memory-, emotion-, and control-related brain systems during reactivity to and regulation of negative autobiographical memories. METHODS: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify neural mechanisms underlying MDD-related emotional responses to negative autobiographical memories and the ability to downregulate these responses using a cognitive regulatory strategy known as reappraisal. We compared currently depressed, medication-free patients with MDD (n = 29) with control participants with no history of depression (n = 23). RESULTS: Relative to healthy control participants, medication-free MDD patients reported greater negative emotion during recall but relatively intact downregulation success. They also showed elevated amygdala activity and greater amygdala-hippocampal connectivity. This connectivity mediated the effect of MDD on negative emotional experience. When reappraising memories (vs. recalling from an immersed perspective), the MDD and control groups showed comparable recruitment of the prefrontal, parietal, and temporal cortices, and comparable downregulation of the amygdala and anterior hippocampus. However, MDD patients showed greater downregulation of the posterior hippocampus, and the extent of this downregulation predicted successful reduction of negative affect in MDD patients only. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest amygdala-hippocampal connectivity and posterior hippocampal downregulation as brain mechanisms related to elevated emotional reactivity and atypical emotion regulation in MDD.