Korean J Schizophr Res.  2012 Jun;15(1):27-33. 10.16946/kjsr.2012.15.1.27.

Deficit of Executive Control of Positive Emotional Information and Its Association with Social Anhedonia in Schizophrenia

• Park JS
• Chun JW
• Park IH
• Kim ES
• Kim JJ

• KMID: 1790744
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.16946/kjsr.2012.15.1.27

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Schizophrenia has been considered to be characterized by an abnormality in attention, especially in the executive control. Emotion is an important component of the executive control. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of emotion on the executive control in patients with schizophrenia.
METHODS
Participants were 20 healthy controls and 19 subjects with schizophrenia. They viewed full-color pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System. During each trial, an emotional picture, which was either positive or negative, lit up on either the left or right side. Participants were instructed to respond to the emotional valance of each stimulus by pressing a button with their left or right index finger, while ignoring its presented side.
RESULTS
There was a group difference in the response time, and patients with schizophrenia exhibited an impairment in the executive control of emotional information. However, there was no difference in the response time between the emotional conditions. In the patient group, the missing rate in the positive emotional condition was correlated with the severity of social anhedonia, whereas the missing rate in the negative emotional condition was correlated with the severity of positive symptoms.
CONCLUSION
Patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in the executive control of positive emotional information as well as negative emotion, but it may be due to different underlying mechanisms.

Keyword

Schizophrenia; Emotion; Conflict; Attention; Anhedonia

MeSH Terms

Anhedonia
Executive Function
Fingers
Humans
Reaction Time
Schizophrenia

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Emotional discrimination task and four conditions, the positive congruent, negative congruent, positive incongruent and negative incongruent.

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  Fig. 2 Interaction among correct response rate, missing rate and response time in different conditions. *: statistically significant p<0.05.

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  Fig. 3 Pearson correlations of the missing rate with anhedonia scores and PANSS in patients with schizophrenia *: p<0.05, †: p<0.01. PANSS : Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale.

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