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Angry but not neutral faces facilitate response inhibition in schizophrenia patients

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Abstract

Schizophrenia is a very heterogeneous disorder with extensive impairments in cognitive as well as emotional abilities. One critical domain is response inhibition, and previous studies in schizophrenia patients have mostly observed impairments, i.e., slower inhibition. Moreover, response inhibition to socially salient stimuli has not been investigated in schizophrenia so far. Therefore, to elucidate emotion–cognition interactions by examining potential emotional effects on inhibition processes and further investigate the association of cognition with inhibition we used an emotional stop signal task in 27 schizophrenia patients and 27 gender- and age-matched controls. Task irrelevant emotional faces (angry and neutral) were used as stimuli in a stop signal reaction time task. Regarding accuracy, patients showed significantly worse performance in neutral trials, while their performance in anger trials (stop and go) was similar to controls. Angry faces elicited faster response inhibition in both groups, underlining an emotional facilitation effect. Neurocognitive functions significantly correlated with accuracy in the stop signal task in schizophrenia patients, thus further strengthening the notion of the strong link between cognitive abilities and inhibition processes. Inhibitory control impairments are of high clinical interest due to their association with substance abuse, impulsive behavior and suicide. Based on our data, neutral faces significantly affect response inhibition in schizophrenia while an emotional facilitation effect was apparent for angry faces even in schizophrenia patients. Thus, our data further support the notion that neutral face processing is critically impaired in schizophrenia.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Nina Trojan and Pia Hoffmann, Dr. Vera Pfersmann, Dr. Werner Brosch, Mag. Manfred Kornberger, Dr. Maria Doppelbauer-Dragschitz, Dr. Eleonore Miller-Reiter and Dr. Friedrich Schmidl for their assistance and support of data collection and patient recruitment. BD and UH were supported by the Austrian Science Fund (P23533-B13), German Research Foundation (DFG, IRTG 1318 and 2150) and JARA BRAIN. Funding agencies had no role regarding data analyses, preparation or submission of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Birgit Derntl

  2. Werner Reichardt Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Birgit Derntl

  3. LEAD Graduate School and Research Network, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Birgit Derntl

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Ute Habel

  5. JARA Brain, Jülich Aachen Research Alliance, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich-Aachen, Germany

    Ute Habel

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  1. Birgit Derntl
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Correspondence to Birgit Derntl.

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Derntl, B., Habel, U. Angry but not neutral faces facilitate response inhibition in schizophrenia patients. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 267, 621–627 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-016-0748-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-016-0748-8

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