Emotional scene processing in biotypes of psychosis.

Social-emotional deficits in psychosis may be indexed by deviations in emotional scene processing, but event-related potential (ERP) studies indicate such deviations may not map cleanly to diagnostic categories. Neurobiologically defined psychosis subgroups offer an alternative that may better capture neurophysiological correlates of social-emotional deficits. The current study investigates emotional scene-elicited ERPs in Biotypes of psychosis in a large (N = 622), well-characterized sample. Electroencephalography was recorded in healthy persons (N = 129), Biotype-1 (N = 195), Biotype-2 (N = 131), and Biotype-3 (N = 167) psychosis cases. ERPs were measured from posterior and centroparietal scalp locations. Neural responses to emotional scenes were compared between healthy and psychosis groups. Multivariate group discrimination analyses resulted in two composite variates that differentiated groups. The first variate displayed large differences between low-cognition (Biotype-1, Biotype-2) and intact-cognition groups (Biotype-3, healthy persons). The second indicated a small-to-moderate distinction of Biotypes-2 and -3 from Biotype-1 and healthy persons. Two multivariate correlations were identified indicating associations between 1) self-reported emotional experience and generalized cognition and 2) socio-occupational functioning and late-stage emotional processing. Psychosis Biotypes displayed emotional processing deficits not apparent in DSM psychosis subgroups. Future translational research may benefit from exploring emotional scene processing in such neurobiologically-defined psychosis groups.

Anti-carbamylated protein antibodies in unaffected first-degree relatives of rheumatoid arthritis patients: lack of correlation with anti-cyclic citrullinated protein antibodies and rheumatoid factor.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prevalence of anti-carbamylated protein antibodies (anti-CarP) in the healthy first-degree relatives (HFDRs) of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS: We enrolled 141 HFDRs of 63 patients with RA diagnosed accordingly to the 2010 ACR/EULAR criteria. Fifty-six normal healthy subjects (NHS), sex- and age-matched, served as controls. Anti-CarP IgG, anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody (anti-CCP) IgG and rheumatoid factors (RF) isotypes (IgG, IgA, IgM) were assessed by solid-phase ELISA. RESULTS: Anti-CarP were detectable in 13 HFDRs (9.2%), anti-CCP in 9 (6.3%), IgG-RF in 10 (7%), IgA-RF in 17 (12%), and IgM-RF in 13 (9.2%) HFDRs. Twenty-nine (46%) RA patients were positive for anti-CarP, 31 (49.2%) for anti-CCP, and 34 (53.9%) for RF. One NHS (1.7%) resulted positive for anti-CarP, none for anti-CCP and RF. Anti-CarP showed significantly higher serum levels in RA and HFDRs than in NHS (p<0.0001 and p=0.0012, respectively). A significant correlation between anti-CCP and RF were found among RA patients (p=0.0002), whereas no correlations were reported between autoantibodies tested in the HFDRs. CONCLUSIONS: Anti-CarP can be found in the sera of HFDRs of RA patients and their prevalence is significantly higher than in NHS. No correlation of anti-CarP with anti-CCP and RF antibodies in RA HFDRs was found.

The timing and directional connectivity of human frontoparietal and ventral visual attention networks in emotional scene perception.

Electrocortical and hemodynamic measures reliably identify enhanced activity in the ventral and dorsal visual cortices during the perception of emotionally arousing versus neutral images, an effect that may reflect directive feedback from the subcortical amygdala. However, other brain regions strongly modulate visual attention, such as frontal eye fields (FEF) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Here we employ rapid sampling of BOLD signal (4 Hz) in the amygdala, fusiform gyrus (FG), FEF and IPS in 42 human participants as they viewed a series of emotional and neutral natural scene photographs balanced for luminosity and complexity, to test whether emotional discrimination is evident in dorsal structures prior to such discrimination in the amygdala and FG. Granger causality analyses were used to assess directional connectivity within dorsal and ventral networks. Results demonstrate emotionally-enhanced peak BOLD signal in the amygdala, FG, FEF, and IPS, with the onset of BOLD signal discrimination occurring between 2 and 3s after stimulus onset in ventral structures, and between 4 and 5s in FEF and IPS. Granger causality estimates yield stronger directional connectivity from IPS to FEF than the reverse in this emotional picture paradigm. Consistent with a reentrant perspective of emotional scene perception, greater directional connectivity was found from the amygdala to FG compared to the reverse. These data support a perspective in which the registration of emotional scene content is orchestrated by the amygdala and rostral inferotemporal visual cortex.

Emotion regulation: quantitative meta-analysis of functional activation and deactivation.

Emotion regulation is hypothesized to be a multifaceted process by which individuals willfully modulate the intensity and direction of emotional response via prefrontally mediated inhibition of subcortical response-related regions of the brain. Here we employ activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies to (1) reveal a consistent network of structures active during emotion regulation, (2) identify the target regions inactivated by the willful regulation process, and (3) investigate the consistency of activated structures associated with downregulation and upregulation. Results reveal signal change in bilateral amygdala/parahippocampal gyrus that decreased in downregulated states and increased in upregulated states, while cortical regions including superior frontal gyrus, cingulate, and premotor areas exhibited enhanced activity across all regulation conditions. These results provide consistent evidence for the role of amygdala activity in experienced emotional intensity, where intentional dampening and exaggeration are clearly expressed. However, the execution of emotional upregulation and downregulation may involve distinct subsets of frontocortical structures.

Affective startle modulation in anticipation and perception.

Startle modulation was investigated as participants first anticipated and then viewed affective pictures in order to determine whether affective modulation of the startle reflex is similar in these different task contexts. During a 6-s anticipation period, a neutral light cue signaled whether the upcoming picture would portray snakes, erotica, or household objects; at the end of the anticipatory period, a picture in the signaled category was viewed for 6 s. Male participants highly fearful of snakes were recruited to maximize emotional arousal during anticipation and perception. Results indicated that the startle reflex was potentiated when anticipating either unpleasant (phobic) or pleasant (erotic) pictures, compared to neutral stimuli, whereas during perception, reflexes were potentiated when viewing unpleasant stimuli, and reduced when viewing pleasant pictures. The startle reflex is modulated by hedonic valence in picture perception, and by emotional arousal in a task context involving picture anticipation.

Emotion and motivation II: sex differences in picture processing.

Adhering to the view that emotional reactivity is organized in part by underlying motivational states--defensive and appetitive--we investigated sex differences in motivational activation. Men's and women's affective reactions were measured while participants viewed pictures with varied emotional and neutral content. As expected, highly arousing contents of threat, mutilation, and erotica prompted the largest affective reactions in both men and women. Nonetheless, women showed a broad disposition to respond with greater defensive reactivity to aversive pictures, regardless of specific content, whereas increased appetitive activation was apparent for men only when viewing erotica. Biological and sociocultural factors in shaping sex differences in emotional reactivity are considered as possible mediators of sex differences in emotional response.