Face processing systems in schizophrenia spectrum disorders

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然在精神分裂症中已经证明了面部感知缺陷，但其潜在的大脑机制及其与社会功能的联系仍然知之甚少。人脸信息的情感加工缺陷已被广泛研究。然而，赤字的非情感的视觉和认知系统，这可能有助于面孔感知问题，还没有系统地研究。本申请的总体假设是：1）除了情感系统之外，有助于面部信息的非情感处理的受损视觉和认知系统有助于面部感知缺陷，以及2）情感和非情感面部处理缺陷与精神分裂症谱系中不同程度的社会功能相关。我们将评估这些假设，首先通过调查的视觉和认知系统专门处理面部信息的精神分裂症和情感障碍的功能特性。使用心理物理学和神经影像学的方法，我们将测量知觉和皮层反应，而患者感知的脸和非脸的图像。将这些非情感评估与患者执行情感感知任务时获得的情感评估进行比较。通过确定视觉加工在面孔信息情感加工中的作用，反之亦然，进一步评估假设。我们将测量调节视觉特征对面部情绪感知的影响，以及调节情感特征对患者基本视觉辨别的影响。对面孔加工的视觉、认知和情感系统的研究将为这些精神障碍患者面孔知觉缺陷的本质提供新的认识。面部信息的层次组织突出了每个处理水平的缺陷，从视觉系统到面部特异性系统和情感系统，主要通过自下而上的机制导致精神分裂症患者的面部依赖性社会功能问题。全面评估的面孔处理系统及其与日常社会功能的关系将提供指针的功能域，自下而上的过程为基础的干预，如知觉训练的特定面部特征可以集中在。 公共卫生相关性：本研究的目的是探讨精神分裂症患者面孔知觉问题的本质和大脑机制。研究人员将使用最先进的心理物理学和神经成像方法来评估精神分裂症或情感障碍患者执行面部检测，面部身份识别和面部情绪识别任务时的感知和皮层反应。本研究的结果将为开发针对精神障碍患者面孔相关社会认知功能改善的新干预措施提供知识基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although deficient face perception has been demonstrated in schizophrenia, its underlying brain mechanism and the link to social functioning remain poorly understood. Deficient affective processing of face information has been extensively studied. However, deficits in the non-affective visual and cognitive systems, which may contribute to the face perception problem, have not been systematically investigated. The overall hypotheses of this application are 1) in addition to the affective system, the compromised visual and cognitive systems that subserve the non-affective processing of face information contributes to the face perception deficit, and 2) deficient affective and non-affective facial processing is associated with social functioning to varying degrees in the schizophrenia spectrum. We will evaluate these hypotheses first by investigating the functional properties of the visual and cognitive systems specialized for processing face information in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. Using psychophysical and neuroimaging approaches, we will measure the perceptual and cortical responses while patients perceive face and non-face images. These non-affective assessments will be compared with the affective assessments acquired while the patients perform emotion perception tasks. The hypotheses will be evaluated further by determining the roles of visual processing in affective processing of face information and vice versa. We will measure the effects of modulating visual features on facial emotion perception as well as the effects of modulating affective features on basic visual discrimination in patients. The investigation of the visual, cognitive and affective face processing systems will provide new insights about the nature of face perception deficits in these mental disorders. Hierarchical organization of face information highlights that deficits in each processing level, from the visual system to the face-specific system and to the affective system, contribute to face-dependent social functioning problems in schizophrenia, primarily through bottom-up mechanisms. The comprehensive assessments of the face processing systems and their relationships with daily social functioning will provide pointers to the functional domains that bottom-up process based interventions such as perceptual training of specific facial features can focus upon. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The goal of this study is to investigate the nature of and the brain mechanisms responsible for the face perception problem in the schizophrenia spectrum. The investigators will use state of the art psychophysical and neuroimaging approaches to evaluate perceptual and cortical responses when patients with schizophrenia or with schizoaffective disorder perform face detection, face identity discrimination and face emotion discrimination tasks. The result of this investigation will provide a knowledge basis for the development of novel interventions targeting face-related social cognitive function improvement in mental disorders.