Clinical high risk for psychosis syndrome is associated with reduced neural responding to unpleasant images.

Abstract

Deficits in emotion processing are core features of psychotic disorders. Electrophysiology research in schizophrenia suggests deficits in sustained engagement with emotional content (indexed by the late positive potential [LPP]) may contribute to emotion processing impairments. Despite similar behavioral emotion processing dysfunction in those at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis, limited research has examined neural mechanisms of impaired emotion processing in the high-risk period, where research can inform risk models. To examine mechanisms of emotion processing deficits in those at CHR for psychosis, the present study used a passive viewing task to elicit the LPP in response to emotionally engaging and neutral stimuli in 28 CHR and 32 control participants (60% female). Relative to controls, CHR participants showed reduced LPP amplitude when viewing unpleasant images (d = 0.75, p = .005) but similar LPP amplitude in response to both neutral (d = 0.35, p = .19) and pleasant images (d = 0.31, p = .24). This pattern suggests that individuals at CHR for psychosis exhibit a deficit in sustained engagement with unpleasant stimuli. Clinical and trait questionnaires were administered to examine potential exploratory explanations for group differences in LPP amplitude. Consistent with evidence suggesting LPP amplitude reflects engagement of approach/avoidance motivational systems, greater LPP amplitude was associated with greater trait-level behavioral avoidance in control participants (r = .42, p = .032) but not CHR participants (r = -.21, p = .40). Together, the present research is consistent with LPP studies in psychosis and implicates reduced sustained engagement with emotional content in the high-risk period.