Brain and Oculometric Markers of Emotional Facial Expression Recognition Deficits
- Conditions
- Psychotic DisordersAutism
- Interventions
- Other: Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings
- Registration Number
- NCT05501405
- Lead Sponsor
- Hôpital le Vinatier
- Brief Summary
Disorders in the recognition of emotional facial expressions are part of the social cognition disorders described in several diseases. They are notably present in a quasi-systematic way in diseases associated with socio-emotional behavior disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism. They are also found in some genetic syndromes with atypical neurodevelopment. In previous studies, the investigators adopted the FPVS-EEG approach to investigate facial emotion discrimination abilities in typical and atypical developing populations. the investigatorshave shown that, in typical adults, the neural response to facial expressions emerges as emotional intensity parametrically increases. A time-domain analysis revealed three components, with the first two increasing linearly with expressive intensity, and the third (beyond 300 ms) showing categorical sensitivity to increasing expressive intensity. The investigators have already successfully extended this approach to the investigation of patients, such as those with 22q11.2 syndrome. The brain response to facial expression was reduced by approximately 36% in these patients, revealing impaired visual coding of emotional facial signals. In this study, response amplitude was associated with positive symptom severity, indicating a potential endophenotype for psychosis risk. Here, the investigators study the implementation of high-level processes and the top-down effect it should have on the response of occipitotemporal regions to identify altered brain markers in schizophrenic patients, but also in other populations with expression recognition deficits (autistic, 22q11.2, in particular). The implementation of compensatory strategies that should result in an increased exploration of the lower part of the face at the oculometric level will also be studied.
- Detailed Description
Disorders in the recognition of emotional facial expressions are part of the social cognition disorders described in several pathologies. In particular, they are almost systematically present in pathologies associated with socio-emotional behavior disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism. They are also found in certain genetic pathologies with atypical neurodevelopment .
Recently, it has been suggested to use a new approach to better understand the brain specificity of populations with face recognition difficulties: the Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) approach coupled with electroencephalography (FPVS-EEG) . This has been done successfully for Autism Spectrum Disorder. The investigators have also done this for 22q11.2 syndrome . This approach has proven to be particularly well suited to the study of atypical populations. However, studies to date have investigated the implicit processing of emotional facial expression. The role of top-down mechanisms related to the task remains to be studied.
Moreover, in these different diseases, difficulties in facial emotion recognition are furthermore associated with abnormalities in the visual exploration of facial features. Some profiles (looking at the lower part) might reflect compensatory strategies to compensate for difficulties in perceiving the whole face or the upper part (i.e., the eye region). Other patterns (disorganized exploration) could reflect the prevalence of psychotic signs.
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- RECRUITING
- Sex
- All
- Target Recruitment
- 210
- Individuals with a genetic condition with psychiatric expression (22q11.2 microdeletion syndrome, Williams syndrome, Präder-Willi syndrome)
- Individuals with schizophrenia according to DSM-5 criteria
- Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) according to DSM-5 criteria
- Individuals between the ages of 10 and 50
- French native language
- Psychotropic treatment unchanged during the month preceding inclusion
- Stable symptomatology
- Individuals having given their informed consent to participate in the study (consent of legal tutors for minors or under tutorship
- Recent addiction, excluding tobacco addiction (according to DSM-5 criteria)
- Neurological disorders of vascular, infectious or neurodegenerative origin for patients with schizophrenia or ASD
- Uncorrected visual acuity disorder
- Use of somatic medications that have a cerebral or psychological impact (e.g. corticosteroids)
- Pregnant women
Study & Design
- Study Type
- INTERVENTIONAL
- Study Design
- PARALLEL
- Arm && Interventions
Group Intervention Description Schizophrenic patients Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Behavorial tests 22q11.2 DS patients Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Behavorial tests Williams syndrome patients Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Behavorial tests Präder Willi syndrome patients Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Behavorial tests Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) patients Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Control participants Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Electroencephalogram and eye-tracking recordings Behavorial tests
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation Task (FPVS-EEG) 48 months Fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) allows the recording of objective brain responses of human face categorization (i.e., generalizable face-selective responses) with high signal-to-noise ratio.The electrical activity of the brain will be collected using an electroencephalography system (EEG; systems used: ANT and BioSemi) to study the cerebral frequency response to the regular occurrence of facial expressions.
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Eye-tracking task 48 months Ocular exploration in the recognition of emotional facial expressions Use of the Eye-tracker (Tobii brand, 250 Hz frequency) to record the participants' eye activity. The task will consist of presenting the neutral face of a person on either side of a fixation cross. The participant will have to stare at the fixation cross for one second to trigger the replacement of one of the two neutral faces by the face of the same person expressing an emotion and will have to identify, as quickly as possible, which of the 5 emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness or sadness) is expressed by the face. After the calibration of the participant's gaze, the latter will carry out a training session of 10 trials \[2 models (1 woman/1 man) x 5 expressions per model\], then an experimental session of 40 trials (6 models (3 women/3 men) x 5 expressions) organized in 2 blocks of 20 trials. The presentation of the trials will be done in a random order.
Trial Locations
- Locations (1)
centre de réhabilitation - Hôpital le Vinatier
🇫🇷Lyon, Rhône, France