2- Abstract
Background
Impaired emotion processing constitutes a key dimension of schizophrenia and a possible
endophenotype of this illness. Empirical studies consistently report poorer emotion
recognition performance in patients with schizophrenia as well as in individuals at
enhanced risk of schizophrenia (“at risk”). fMRI studies also report consistent patterns
of abnormal brain activation in response to emotional stimuli in patients, in particular
decreased amygdala activation. In contrast, brain-level abnormalities in at-risk individuals
are more elusive. We address this gap using an image-based meta-analysis of the fMRI
literature.
Methods
FMRI studies investigating brain responses to negative emotional stimuli and reporting
a comparison between at-risk individuals and healthy controls were identified. Frequentist
and Bayesian voxel-wise meta-analyses were performed separately, by implementing a
random effect model with unthresholded group-level T-maps from individual studies
as input.
Results
Seventeen studies with a cumulative total of 677 at-risk individuals and 805 healthy
controls were included. Frequentist analyses did not reveal significant differences
between at-risk individuals and healthy controls. Similar results were observed with
Bayesian analyses, which provided strong evidence for the absence of meaningful brain
activation differences across the entire brain. Region of interest analyses specifically
focusing on the amygdala confirmed the lack of group differences in this region.
Conclusions
These results suggest that brain activation patterns in response to emotional stimuli
are unlikely to constitute a reliable endophenotype of schizophrenia. We suggest that
future studies rather focus on impaired functional connectivity as an alternative
and promising endophenotype.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Accepted:
June 7,
2022
Received in revised form:
June 7,
2022
Received:
March 8,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Journal Pre-ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2022 Society of Biological Psychiatry.
