The effect of antipsychotic medication on facial affect recognition in schizophrenia: A review

Abstract Patients with schizophrenia suffer from impairments in facial affect recognition and social functioning. Since antipsychotic medication affects different areas in the brain, they may also affect target areas involved in emotional processing mechanisms. In this article, we review the finding...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychiatry research 2010-06, Vol.178 (1), p.1-9
Main Authors: Hempel, Roelie J, Dekker, Judith Anna, van Beveren, Nico J.M, Tulen, Joke H.M, Hengeveld, Michiel W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Antipsychotic Agents - therapeutic use
Atypical
Biological and medical sciences
Emotion
Facial Expression
Haloperidol
Humans
Medical sciences
Memory Disorders - drug therapy
Memory Disorders - etiology
Neuropharmacology
Pharmacology. Drug treatments
Psychiatry
Psycholeptics: tranquillizer, neuroleptic
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychopharmacology
Psychoses
PubMed - statistics & numerical data
Recognition (Psychology) - drug effects
Risperidone
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia - complications
Schizophrenia - drug therapy
Social functioning
Typical
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Summary:Abstract Patients with schizophrenia suffer from impairments in facial affect recognition and social functioning. Since antipsychotic medication affects different areas in the brain, they may also affect target areas involved in emotional processing mechanisms. In this article, we review the findings of the effect of antipsychotic medication on facial affect recognition in schizophrenia. We searched PubMed for articles in English with the keywords schizophrenia, facial, affect, emotion, antipsychotic and medication, published till January 2008. Eight relevant articles were found describing original studies. No substantial improvements in facial affect recognition were found after treatment with either typical or atypical antipsychotic drugs. Facial affect recognition was not related to neuropsychological functioning, and it was unclear whether improvement of symptom severity was related to performance on the facial affect recognition tasks. It is recommended that future research should focus on measuring social skills and social functioning more directly, and by investigating the effects of additional behavioural treatments on facial affect recognition and social functioning relative to treatment with antipsychotic medication alone.
ISSN:0165-1781
1872-7123
DOI:10.1016/j.psychres.2008.07.025