Facial expression recognition, fear conditioning, and startle modulation in female subjects with conduct disorder.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Recent behavioral and psychophysiological studies have provided converging evidence for emotional dysfunction in conduct disorder (CD). Most of these studies focused on male subjects and little is known about emotional processing in female subjects with CD. Our primary aim was to characterize explicit and implicit aspects of emotion function to determine whether deficits in these processes are present in girls with CD.

Methods

Female adolescents with CD (n = 25) and control subjects with no history of severe antisocial behavior and no current psychiatric disorder (n = 30) completed tasks measuring facial expression and facial identity recognition, differential autonomic conditioning, and affective modulation of the startle reflex by picture valence.

Results

SUBMITTER: Fairchild G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2954286 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature