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Objective: Facial emotion recognition (FER) is a fundamental social skill essential for adaptive social behaviors, emotional development, and overall well-being. FER impairments have been linked to various mental disorders, making it a critical transdiagnostic mechanism influencing the development and trajectory of mental disorders. FER has also been found to play a role in the transgenerational transmission of mental disorders, with the majority of research suggesting FER impairments in children of parents with a mental illness (COPMI). Previous research primarily concentrated on COPMI of parents with internalizing disorders, which does not cover the full spectrum of outpatient mental health service populations. Furthermore, research focuses on varying components of FER by using different assessment paradigms, making it challenging to compare study results. To address these gaps, we comprehensively investigated FER abilities in COPMI using multiple tasks varying in task characteristics. Methods: We included 189 children, 77 COPMI and 112 children of parents without a diagnosed mental illness (COPWMI), aged 6 to 16 years. We assessed FER using three tasks with varying task demands: an emotional Go/NoGo task, a morphing task, and a task presenting short video sequences depicting different emotions. We fitted separate two-level hierarchical Bayesian models (to account for sibling pairs in our sample) for reaction times and accuracy rates for each task. Good model fit was assured by comparing models using varying priors. Results: Contrary to our expectations, our results revealed no general FER deficit in COPMI compared to COPWMI. The Bayesian models fitted for accuracy in the morphing task and Go/NoGo task yielded small yet significant effects. However, Bayes factors fitted for the models suggested that these effects could be due to random variations or noise in the data. Conclusions: Our study does not support FER impairments as a general feature of COPMI. Instead, individual factors, such as the type of parental disorder and the timing of its onset, may play a crucial role in influencing FER development. Future research should consider these factors, taking into account the diverse landscape of parental mental disorders.
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Studies using observational measures often fail to meet statistical standards for both reliability and validity. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) System within a German sample of parent-child dyads. The sample consisted of 149 parents with and without a mental illness and their children [n experimental group (EG) = 75, n control group (CG) = 74] who participated in the larger Children of Mentally Ill Parents at Risk Evaluation (COMPARE) study. The age of the children ranged from 3 to 12 years (M = 7.99, SD = 2.5). Exploratory factor analysis supported a five-factor model of the CIB with items describing 1) parental sensitivity/reciprocity, 2) parental intrusiveness, 3) child withdrawal, 4) child involvement, and 5) parent limit setting/child compliance. Compared to international samples, the model was reduced by two independent dyadic factors. Testing for predictive validity identified seven items with predictive power to differentiate parental group membership. The CIB factors did not seem to be sufficiently sensitive to illustrate differences in interaction within a sample of parents with various mental illnesses. To apply the CIB to the described sample or similar ones in the future, additional measurement instruments may be necessary.
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Objective: Although empathy is known to be a strength, recent studies suggest that empathy can be a risk factor for psychopathology under certain conditions in children. This study examines parental mental illness as such a condition. Further, it aims to investigate whether maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) mediates the relationship between empathy and psychopathological symptoms of children. Methods: Participants were 100 children of parents with a mental illness (55% female) and 87 children of parents without a mental illness (50% female) aged 6 - 16 years and their parents. Results: Greater cognitive empathy was related to more psychopathological symptoms in COPMI, but not in COPWMI. In addition, in COPMI maladaptive ER mediated this relationship. In contrast, greater affective empathy was associated with more psychopathological symptoms regardless of whether parents had a mental illness. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the importance of implementing preventive programs for COPMI that specifically target the reduction of maladaptive ER.
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Objective: Children of parents with a mental illness are at heightened risk to develop a mental illness themselves due to genetics and environmental factors. Although parenting stress (PS) is known to be associated with increased psychopathology in parents and children, there is no study investigating PS multimodally in a sample of parents with a mental illness. This study aims to compare PS of parents with and without a mental illness and further to examine the relationship between PS and psychopathology of children. Methods: Participants were parents with a mental illness and parents without a mental illness and their children aged four to sixteen years. We assessed PS multimodally using a questionnaire, parents' evaluation of children's behavior (relational schemas) and psychophysiological arousal of parents during free speech task. Results: Self-reported PS was increased, and evaluation of children's behavior was more negative and less positive in parents with a mental illness compared to parents without a mental illness. Children's psychopathology was associated with self-reported PS and relational schemas of parents. Regarding psychophysiological arousal, parents with a mental illness showed reduced reactivity in heart rate from baseline to free speech task in comparison to parents without a mental illness. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the importance of implementing intervention programs to reduce PS for parents and children. In particular, parents with a mental illness might benefit from specific intervention programs in order to interrupt the transgenerational transmission of mental disorders.
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Recent fMRI findings revealed that impairment in a serial prediction task in patients suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD) results from hypoactivity of the SMA. Furthermore, hyperactivity of the lateral premotor cortex sustained performance after withdrawal of medication. To further explore these findings, we here examined the impact of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus on the activity of the putamen and premotor areas while performing the serial prediction task. To this end, we measured eight male PD patients ON and OFF deep brain stimulation and eight healthy age-matched male controls using [15O] water positron emission tomography to measure regional cerebral blood flow. As expected, PD patients showed poorer performance than healthy controls while performance did not differ between OFF and ON stimulation. Hypoactivity of the putamen and hyperactivity of the left lateral premotor cortex was found in patients compared to controls. Lateral premotor hyperactivity further increased OFF compared to ON stimulation and was positively related to task performance. These results confirm that the motor loop's dysfunction has impact on cognitive processes (here: prediction of serial stimuli) in PD. Extending prior data regarding the role of the lateral premotor cortex in cognitive compensation, our results indicate that lateral premotor cortex hyperactivity, while beneficial in moderate levels of impairment, might fail to preserve performance in more severe stages of the motor loop's degeneration.
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Trastornos del Conocimiento/etiología , Trastornos del Conocimiento/terapia , Estimulación Encefálica Profunda/métodos , Actividad Motora/fisiología , Enfermedad de Parkinson/complicaciones , Núcleo Subtalámico/fisiología , Anciano , Antiparkinsonianos/uso terapéutico , Mapeo Encefálico , Femenino , Humanos , Procesamiento de Imagen Asistido por Computador , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Oxígeno/sangre , Enfermedad de Parkinson/diagnóstico por imagen , Enfermedad de Parkinson/terapia , Tomografía de Emisión de PositronesRESUMEN
Cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease (PD) is often attributed to dopamine deficiency in the prefrontal-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loops. Although recent studies point to a close interplay between motor and cognitive abilities in PD, the so-called "motor loop" connecting supplementary motor area (SMA) and putamen has been considered solely with regard to the patients' motor impairment. Our study challenges this view by testing patients with the serial prediction task (SPT), a cognitive task that requires participants to predict stimulus sequences and particularly engages premotor sites of the motor loop. We hypothesised that affection of the motor loop causes impaired SPT performance, especially when the internal sequence representation is challenged by suspension of external stimuli. As shown for motor tasks, we further expected this impairment to be compensated by hyperactivity of the lateral premotor cortex (PM). We tested 16 male PD patients ON and OFF dopaminergic medication and 16 male age-matched healthy controls in an functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study. All subjects performed two versions of the SPT: one with on-going sequences (SPT0), and one with sequences containing non-informative wildcards (SPT+) increasing the demands on mnemonic sequence representation. Patients ON (compared to controls) revealed an impaired performance coming along with hypoactivity of SMA and putamen. Patients OFF compared to ON medication, while showing poorer performance, exhibited a significantly increased PM activity for SPT+ vs. SPT0. Furthermore, patients' performance positively co-varied with PM activity, corroborating a compensatory account. Our data reveal a contribution of the motor loop to cognitive impairment in PD, and suggest a close interplay of SMA and PM beyond motor control.
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Encéfalo/fisiopatología , Cognición/fisiología , Enfermedad de Parkinson/fisiopatología , Percepción Visual/fisiología , Adulto , Anciano , Antiparkinsonianos/uso terapéutico , Encéfalo/efectos de los fármacos , Mapeo Encefálico , Cognición/efectos de los fármacos , Dopaminérgicos/uso terapéutico , Humanos , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Vías Nerviosas/efectos de los fármacos , Vías Nerviosas/fisiopatología , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Enfermedad de Parkinson/tratamiento farmacológico , Enfermedad de Parkinson/psicología , Tiempo de Reacción/efectos de los fármacos , Reconocimiento en Psicología/efectos de los fármacos , Reconocimiento en Psicología/fisiología , Percepción Visual/efectos de los fármacosRESUMEN
Mental strategies have been suggested to constitute a promising approach to improve motor abilities in both healthy subjects and patients. This behavioural effect has been shown to be associated with changes of neural activity in premotor areas, not only during movement execution, but also while performing motor imagery or action observation. However, how well such mental tasks are performed is often difficult to assess, especially in patients. We here used a novel mental training paradigm based on the serial prediction task (SPT) in order to activate premotor circuits in the absence of a motor task. We then tested whether this intervention improves motor-related performance such as sensorimotor transformation. Two groups of healthy young participants underwent a single-blinded five-day cognitive training schedule and were tested in four different motor tests on the day before and after training. One group (N=22) received the SPT-training and the other one (N=21) received a control training based on a serial match-to-sample task. The results revealed significant improvements of the SPT-group in a sensorimotor timing task, i.e. synchronization of finger tapping to a visually presented rhythm, as well as improved visuomotor coordination in a sensory-guided pointing task compared to the group that received the control training. However, mental training did not show transfer effects on motor abilities in healthy subjects beyond the trained modalities as evident by non-significant changes in the Jebsen-Taylor handfunctiontest. In summary, the data suggest that mental training based on the serial prediction task effectively engages sensorimotor circuits and thereby improves motor behaviour.
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Cognición , Aprendizaje , Desempeño Psicomotor , Adulto , Percepción Auditiva , Femenino , Mano , Humanos , Masculino , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Método Simple Ciego , Análisis y Desempeño de Tareas , Percepción del Tiempo , Transferencia de Experiencia en Psicología , Percepción Visual , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
Traditionally, the lateral premotor cortex (PM) is assigned a role in stimulus-driven rather than memory-driven motor control, whereas the opposite holds for the mesial premotor cortex (supplementary motor area, SMA). Consistently, patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD), in which a specific functional degradation of the mesial loop (i.e., SMA-Striatum) occurs, show impaired memory-driven but relatively preserved stimulus-driven motor control. However, both parts of the premotor cortex are involved in perceptual prediction tasks as well. Here we tested whether the functional bias described on the motor level (i.e., memory-driven/mesial versus stimulus-driven/lateral) can also be detected in perceptual prediction tasks thereby suggesting that PD patients exhibit the same pattern of impaired memory-driven and preserved stimulus-driven control in the cognitive domain. To this end, we investigated 20 male PD-patients "on" and "off" dopaminergic medication while performing a serial prediction task (SPT). A specific modification was implemented to the classical SPT (SPT0) that caused shifts from stimulus- to memory-based prediction (SPT+). As a result, PD patients showed a significantly impaired performance "off" compared to "on" medication for SPT+, whereas no significant "on"/"off"-effects were found for SPT0. Descriptively, the "off"-performance decreased gradually with increasing demands on memory-based prediction. Furthermore, the severity of motor deficits according to the UPDRS III correlated significantly with impaired performance in SPT0 "on" medication. Importantly, an even stronger dependency was found for UPDRS III and SPT+. These findings point to a role of the SMA-striatal loop in memory-driven serial prediction beyond the motor domain.