Examining facial emotion recognition as an intermediate phenotype for psychosis: Findings from the EUGEI study
Genetic Risk and Outcome of Psychosis (GROUP) Investigators
(2022) Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, volume 113, pp. 1 - 9
(Article)
Abstract
Background: Social cognition impairments, such as facial emotion recognition (FER), have been acknowledged since the earliest description of schizophrenia. Here, we tested FER as an intermediate phenotype for psychosis using two approaches that are indicators of genetic risk for schizophrenia: the proxy-genetic risk approach (family design) and the polygenic risk
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score for schizophrenia (PRS-SCZ). Methods: The sample comprised 2039 individuals with schizophrenia, 2141 siblings, and 2049 healthy controls (HC). The Degraded Facial Affect Recognition Task (DFAR) was applied to measure the FER accuracy. Schizotypal traits in siblings and HC were assessed using the Structured Interview for Schizotypy-Revised (SIS-R). The PRS-SCZ was trained using the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium results. Regression models were applied to test the association of DFAR with psychosis risk, SIS-R, and PRS-SCZ. Results: The DFAR-total scores were lower in individuals with schizophrenia than in siblings (RR = 0.97 [95% CI 0.97, 0.97]), who scored lower than HC (RR = 0.99 [95% CI 0.99–1.00]). The DFAR-total scores were negatively associated with SIS-R total scores in siblings (B = −2.04 [95% CI −3.72, −0.36]) and HC (B = −2.93 [95% CI −5.50, −0.36]). Different patterns of association were observed for individual emotions. No significant associations were found between DFAR scores and PRS-SCZ. Conclusions: Our findings based on a proxy genetic risk approach suggest that FER deficits may represent an intermediate phenotype for schizophrenia. However, a significant association between FER and PRS-SCZ was not found. In the future, genetic mechanisms underlying FER phenotypes should be investigated trans-diagnostically.
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Keywords: Emotion, Polygenic risk score, Schizophrenia, Schizotypal traits, Social cognition, Biological Psychiatry, Pharmacology, Journal Article
ISSN: 0278-5846
Publisher: Elsevier Inc.
Note: Funding Information: Celso Arango has been a consultant to or has received honoraria or grants from Acadia, Angelini, Gedeon Richter, Janssen Cilag, Lundbeck, Minerva, Otsuka, Roche, Sage, Servier, Shire, Schering Plough, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, Sunovion and Takeda. Michael O'Donovan is supported by a collaborative research grant from Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Maria Paz Garcia-Portilla has been a consultant to and/or has received honoraria/grants from Angelini, Alianza Otsuka-Lundbeck, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Otsuka, Pfizer, and SAGE Therapeutics. Funding Information: The EUGEI project was supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI). Dr. Pries is supported by the Kootstra Talent Fellowship of Maastricht University . Dr. Erzin is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey , 2219 International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program. Dr. O'Donovan is supported by MRC programme grant ( G08005009 ) and an MRC Centre grant ( MR/L010305/1 ). Dr. Rutten was funded by a VIDI award number 91718336 from the Netherlands Scientific Organisation . Drs Guloksuz and van Os are supported by the Ophelia research project, ZonMw grant number: 636340001. Dr. Arango was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation ; Instituto de Salud Carlos III ( SAM16PE07CP1 , PI16/02012 , PI19/024 ); CIBERSAM; Madrid Regional Government ( B2017/BMD-3740 AGES-CM-2 ); Fundación Familia Alonso and Fundación Alicia Koplowitz . Funding Information: The authors are grateful to the patients and their families for participating in the project. They also thank all research personnel involved in the GROUP project, in particular J. van Baaren, E. Veermans, G. Driessen, T. Driesen, E. van't Hag and J. de Nijs. All the DNA samples from Turkey were provided by the Ankara University Brain Research Center Biobank , that was supported by Ankara University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit (project no. 10A6055003 , 2010). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors
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