Psychophysiological Responses to Sadness in Girls and Boys With Conduct Disorder

• Published in: Journal of psychopathology and clinical science 2022-04, Vol.131 (3), p.314-326
• Main Authors: Oldenhof, Helena, Jansen, Lucres, Ackermann, Katharina, Baker, Rosalind, Batchelor, Molly, Baumann, Sarah, Bernhard, Anka, Clanton, Roberta, Dochnal, Roberta, Fehlbaum, Lynn Valérie, Fernandez-Rivas, Aranzazu, Goergen, Sarah, Gonzalez de Artaza-Lavesa, Maider, Gonzalez-Madruga, Karen, Gonzalez-Torres, Miguel Angel, Gundlach, Malou, Lotte van der Hoeven, Mara, Kalogerakis, Zacharias, Kapornai, Krisztina, Kieser, Meinhard, Konsta, Angeliki, Martinelli, Anne, Pauli, Ruth, Rogers, Jack, Smaragdi, Areti, Sesma-Pardo, Eva, Siklósi, Réka, Steppan, Martin, Tsiakoulia, Foteini, Vermeiren, Robert, Vriends, Noortje, Werner, Marleen, Herpertz-Dahlmann, Beate, Kohls, Gregor, De Brito, Stephane, Konrad, Kerstin, Stadler, Christina, Fairchild, Graeme, Freitag, Christine M., Popma, Arne
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antisocial behavior; Cardiac arrhythmia; Children & youth; Comorbidity; Conduct Disorder; Emotions; Female; Girls; Heart Rate; Human; Human Sex Differences; Indexing; Internalization; Internalizing disorders; Male; Parasympathetic Nervous System; Phenotypes; Physiological psychology; Prosocial behavior; Psychophysiological measures; Psychophysiology; Respiratory System; Responsiveness; Sadness
• ISSN: 2769-7541; 2769-755X
• DOI: 10.1037/abn0000524

Reduced responsiveness to emotions is hypothesized to contribute to the development of conduct disorder (CD) in children and adolescents. Accordingly, blunted psychophysiological responses to emotions have been observed in boys with CD, but this has never been tested in girls. Therefore, this study compared psychophysiological responses to sadness in girls and boys with and without CD, and different clinical phenotypes of CD: with versus without limited prosocial emotions (LPE), and with versus without comorbid internalizing disorders (INT). Nine-hundred and 27 girls (427 CD, 500 controls) and 519 boys (266 CD, 253 controls) aged 9-18 years participated. Psychophysiological responses were measured while participants watched two validated sad film clips, specifically: heart rate (HR), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; indexing parasympathetic activity), preejection period (PEP; indexing sympathetic activity). Girls and boys with CD showed larger HR responses to sadness than controls. This effect was rendered nonsignificant, however, after controlling for covariates. We observed aberrant RSA responses to sadness in CD compared with controls. Similarly, we found a significant positive association between RSA responsivity and antisocial behavior when assessed dimensionally. The effects were very small, though. Results were similar for boys and girls. We found no evidence for emotional underresponsiveness in CD in the largest psychophysiological study to date in this field. More research is needed to explore whether this is specific to sadness or generalizes to other emotions. Furthermore, we recommend that studies on emotion processing in CD assess different physiological measures to help disentangle CD-related effects on sympathetic and parasympathetic activity. General Scientific Summary We investigated emotion processing in a large sample of boys and girls with a clinical diagnosis of conduct disorder (CD) to further the understanding of the underpinnings of antisocial behavior. We did not find support for the idea that children and adolescent with CD are physiologically unresponsive to sadness. Thus, although suggested by previous studies, children and adolescents with CD should not be perceived as "unemotional." More studies are needed, however, to investigate whether this is specific for sadness or generalizes to other emotions.