Hostname: page-component-669899f699-g7b4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T17:45:46.898Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Impaired emotion regulation in schizophrenia: evidence from event-related potentials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2013

W. P. Horan ,
G. Hajcak ,
J. K. Wynn  and
M. F. Green
W. P. Horan*
Affiliation:
VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
G. Hajcak
Affiliation:
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
J. K. Wynn
Affiliation:
VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
M. F. Green
Affiliation:
VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: W. P. Horan, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles and VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, MIRECC 210A, Bldg 210, 11301 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90073, USA. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Although several aspects of emotion seem to be intact in schizophrenia, there is emerging evidence that patients show an impaired ability to adaptively regulate their emotions. This event-related potential (ERP) study examined whether schizophrenia is associated with impaired neural responses to appraisal frames, that is when negative stimuli are presented in a less negative context.

Method

Thirty-one schizophrenia out-patients and 27 healthy controls completed a validated picture-viewing task with three conditions: (1) neutral pictures preceded by neutral descriptions (‘Neutral’), (2) unpleasant pictures preceded by negative descriptions (‘Preappraised negative’), and (3) unpleasant pictures preceded by more neutral descriptions (‘Preappraised neutral’). Analyses focused on the late positive potential (LPP), an index of facilitated attention to emotional stimuli that is reduced following cognitive emotion regulation strategies, during four time windows from 300 to 2000 ms post-picture onset.

Results

Replicating prior studies, controls showed smaller LPP in Preappraised neutral and Neutral versus Preappraised negative conditions throughout the 300–2000-ms time period. By contrast, patients showed (a) larger LPP in Preappraised neutral and Preappraised negative versus Neutral conditions in the initial period (300–600 ms) and (b) an atypical pattern of larger LPP to Preappraised neutral versus Preappraised negative and Neutral conditions in the 600–1500-ms epochs.

Conclusions

Modulation of neural responses by a cognitive emotion regulation strategy seems to be impaired in schizophrenia during the first 2 s after exposure to unpleasant stimuli.

Keywords

Emotion regulationevent-related potentials (ERPs)late positive potentialschizophrenia
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 43 , Issue 11 , November 2013 , pp. 2377 - 2391
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aldao, A, Nolen-Hoeksema, S, Schweizer, S (2010). Emotion-regulation strategies across psychopathology: a meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review 30, 217–237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Andreasen, NC, Pressler, M, Nopoulos, P, Miller, D, Ho, BC (2010). Antipsychotic dose equivalents and dose-years: a standardized method for comparing exposure to different drugs. Biological Psychiatry 67, 255–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Badcock, JC, Paulik, G, Maybery, MT (2011). The role of emotion regulation in auditory hallucinations. Psychiatry Research 185, 303–308.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barch, DM, Braver, TS (2005). Cognitive control and schizophrenia: psychological and neural mechanisms. In Cognitive Limitations in Aging and Psychopathology (ed. Engle, R. W., Sedek, G., von Hecker, U. and McIntosh, D. N.), pp. 122–159. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bassam, K, LeCompte, T (2012). Emotion regulation and schizophrenia. International Journal of Cognitive Therapy 5, 67–76.Google Scholar
Blanchard, JJ, Kring, AM, Horan, WP, Gur, R (2011). Toward the next generation of negative symptom assessments: the collaboration to advance negative symptom assessment in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin 37, 291–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chung, YS, Barch, DM (2011). The effect of emotional context on facial emotion ratings in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research 103, 235–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, AS, Minor, KS (2008). Emotional experience in patients with schizophrenia re-revisited: meta-analysis of laboratory studies. Schizophrenia Bulletin 36, 143–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Decety, J, Lamm, C (2006). Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience. Scientific World Journal 6, 1146–1163.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DeCicco, J, Solomon, B, Dennis, TA (2012). Neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal in children: an ERP study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 2, 70–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dennis, TA, Hajcak, G (2009). The late positive potential: a neurophysiological marker for emotion regulation in children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 50, 1373–1383.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eack, SM, Greeno, CG, Pogue-Geile, MF, Newhill, CE, Hogarty, GE, Keshavan, MS (2008). Assessing social-cognitive deficits in schizophrenia with the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. Schizophrenia Bulletin 36, 370–380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
First, MB, Gibbon, M, Spitzer, RL, Williams, JBW (1996). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders. Patient Edition. Biometrics Research Department, New York State Psychiatric Institute: New York.Google Scholar
First, MB, Spitzer, RL, Gibbon, M, Williams, JBW, Benjamin, L (1994). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (version 2.0). Biometrics Research Department, New York State Psychiatric Institute: New York.Google Scholar
Foti, D, Hajcak, G (2008). Deconstructing reappraisal: descriptions preceding arousing pictures modulate the subsequent neural response. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20, 977–988.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foti, D, Hajcak, G, Dien, J (2009). Differentiating neural responses to emotional pictures: evidence from temporal-spatial PCA. Psychophysiology 46, 521–530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gratton, G, Coles, MG, Donchin, E (1983). A new method for off-line removal of occular artifact. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 55, 468–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, MF, Horan, WP (2010). Social cognition in scihzophrenia. Current Directions in Psychological Science 19, 243–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, MJ, Waldron, JH, Coltheart, M (2007). Emotional context processing is impaired in schizophrenia. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 12, 259–280.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gross, JJ (1998). Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation: divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74, 224–237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gross, JJ (2002). Emotion regulation: affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology 39, 281–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gross, JJ, John, OP (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: implications for affect, relationships and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, 348–362.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gross, JJ, Thompson, RA (2007). Emotion regulation: conceptual foundations. In Handbook of Emotion Regulation(ed. Gross, J. J.), pp. 3–23. Guilford Press: New York.Google Scholar
Hajcak, G, Dunning, JP, Foti, D (2009). Motivated and controlled attention to emotion: time-course of the late positive potential. Clinical Neurophysiology 120, 505–510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hajcak, G, Dunning, J, Foti, D, Weinberg, A (in press). Temporal dynamics of emotion regulation. In Handbook of Emotion Regulation, 2nd ednGross, J. J.), pp. 441–474. Guilford Publications: New York.Google Scholar
Hajcak, G, MacNamara, A, Olvet, DM (2010). Event-related potentials, emotion, and emotion regulation: an integrative review. Developmental Neuropsychology 35, 129–155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hajcak, G, Nieuwenhuis, S (2006). Reappraisal modulates the electrocortical response to unpleasant pictures. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience 6, 291–297.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hajcak, G, Weinberg, A, MacNamara, A, Foti, D (2012). ERPs and the study of emotion. In Oxford Handbook of ERP Components(ed. Luck, S. J. and Kappenman, E. S.), pp. 441–474. Oxford University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Hemsley, DR (2005). The schizophrenic experience: taken out of context? Schizophrenia Bulletin 31, 43–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henry, JD, Green, MJ, de Lucia, A, Restuccia, C, McDonald, S, O'Donnell, M (2007). Emotion dysregulation in schizophrenia: reduced amplification of emotional expression is associated with emotional blunting. Schizophenia Research 95, 197–204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henry, JD, Rendell, PG, Green, MJ, McDonald, S, O'Donnell, M (2008). Emotion regulation in schizophrenia: affective, social, and clinical correlates of suppression and reappraisal. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 117, 473–478.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horan, WP, Foti, D, Hajcak, G, Wynn, JK, Green, MF (2012). Intact motivated attention in schizophrenia: evidence from event-related potentials. Schizophrenia Research 135, 95–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horan, WP, Wynn, JK, Kring, AM, Simons, RF, Green, MF (2010). Electrophysiological correlates of emotional responding in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 119, 18–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huang, J, Chan, RC, Lu, X, Tong, Z (2009). Emotion categorization perception in schizophrenia in conversations with different social contexts. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 43, 438–445.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Juckel, G, Schlagenhauf, F, Koslowski, M, Filonov, D, Wustenberg, T, Villringer, A, Knutson, B, Kienast, T, Gallinat, J, Wrase, J, Heinz, A (2006). Dysfunction of ventral striatal reward prediction in schizophrenic patients treated with typical, not atypical, neuroleptics. Psychopharmacology 187, 222–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kee, KS, Horan, WP, Salovey, P, Kern, RS, Sergi, MJ, Fiske, AP, Lee, J, Subotnik, KI, Nuechterlein, K, Sugar, CA, Green, MF (2009). Emotional intelligence in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research 107, 61–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kopelowicz, A, Ventura, J, Liberman, RP, Mintz, J (2008). Consistency of Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale factor structure across a broad spectrum of schizophrenia patients. Psychopathology 41, 77–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kring, AM, Moran, EK (2008). Emotional response deficits in schizophrenia: insights from affective science. Schizophrenia Bulletin 34, 819–834.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lang, PJ, Bradley, MM, Cuthbert, BN (1999). International Affective Picture System: Instruction Manual and Affective Ratings. Technical Report a-4. The Center for Research in Psychophysiology, University of Florida: Gainesville, FL.Google Scholar
Lazarus, RS (1991). Progress on a cognitive–motivational–relational theory of emotion. American Psychologist 46, 819–834.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, J, Kern, RS, Harvey, PO, Horan, WP, Kee, KS, Ochsner, K, Penn, DL, Green, MF (2012). An intact social cognitive process in schizophrenia: situational context effects on perception of facial affect. Schizophrenia Bulletin. Published online: 24 April 2012. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbs063.Google ScholarPubMed
Lesh, TA, Niendam, TA, Minzenberg, MJ, Carter, CS (2011). Cognitive control deficits in schizophrenia: mechanisms and meanings. Neuropsychopharmacology 36, 216–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Livingstone, K, Harper, S, Gillanders, D (2009). An exploration of emotion regulation in psychosis. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy 16, 418–430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lukoff, D, Nuechterlein, KH, Ventura, J (1986). Manual for the expanded Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Schizophrenia Bulletin 12, 578–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, AW 3rd, Carter, CS, Kerns, JG, Ursu, S, Barch, DM, Holmes, AJ, Stenger, VA, Cohen, JD (2005). Specificity of prefrontal dysfunction and context processing deficits to schizophrenia in never-medicated patients with first-episode psychosis. American Journal of Psychiatry 162, 475–484.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacNamara, A, Foti, D, Hajcak, G (2009). Tell me about it: neural activity elicited by emotional pictures and preceding descriptions. Emotion 9, 531–543.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacNamara, A, Ochsner, KN, Hajcak, G (2011). Previously reappraised: the lasting effects of description type on picture-elicited electrocortical activity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 6, 348–358.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mayer, JD, Salovey, P, Caruso, DR, Sitarenios, G (2003). Measuring emotional intelligence with the MSCEIT V2.0. Emotion 3, 97–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mocaiber, I, Pereira, MG, Erthal, FS, Figueira, I, Machado-Pinheiro, W, Cagy, M, Volchan, E, de Oliveira, L (2009). Regulation of negative emotions in high trait anxious individuals: an ERP study. Psychology and Neuroscience 2, 211–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, RW, Sparks, A, Mitchell, PB, Weickert, CS, Green, MJ (2012). Lack of cortico-limbic coupling in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia during emotion regulation. Translational Psychiatry 2, e90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ochsner, KN, Gross, JJ (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Science 9, 242–249.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Overall, JE, Gorham, DR (1962). The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Psychological Reports 10, 799–812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, S, Lee, J, Folley, B, Kim, J (2003). Schizophrenia: putting context in context. Behavior and Brain Research 26, 98–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Y, Henry, JD, Grisham, JR (2011). The habitual use of emotion regulation strategies in schizophrenia. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 50, 217–222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schlagenhauf, F, Juckel, G, Koslowski, M, Kahnt, T, Knutson, B, Dembler, T, Kienast, T, Gallinat, J, Wrase, J, Heinz, A (2008). Reward system activation in schizophrenic patients switched from typical neuroleptics to olanzapine. Psychopharmacology 196, 673–684.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, MJ, Horan, WP, Karpouzian, TM, Abram, SV, Cobia, DJ, Csernansky, JG (2012). Self-reported empathy deficits are uniquely associated with poor functioning in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research 137, 196–202.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van der Meer, I, van't Wout, M, Aleman, A (2009). Emotion regulation strategies in patients with schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research 170, 108–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Petten, C, Luka, BJ (2006). Neural localization of semantic context effects in electromagnetic and hemodynamic studies. Brain and Language 97, 279–293.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ventura, J, Green, MF, Shaner, A, Liberman, RP (1993). Training and quality assurance with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale: ‘the drift busters’. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research 3, 221–224.Google Scholar
Ventura, J, Liberman, RP, Green, MF, Shaner, A (1998). Training and quality assurance with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Psychiatry Research 79, 163–173.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Werner, K, Gross, JJ (2010). Emotion regulation and psychopathology: a conceptual framework. In Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology(ed. Kring, A. and Sloan, D. S.), pp. 13–37. Guilford Press: New York.Google Scholar
Wu, I, Winkler, MH, Andreatta, M, Hajcak, G, Pauli, P (2012). Appraisal frames of pleasant and unpleasant pictures alter emotional responses as reflected in self-report and facial electromyographic activity. International Journal of Psychophysiology 85, 224–229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed