Diminished Neural Responses to Emotionally Valenced Facial Stimuli: A Potential Biomarker for Unemotional Traits in Early Childhood

Abstract

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by deficits in guilt/empathy, shallow affect, and the callous and manipulative use of others. Individuals showing CU traits have increased risk for behavior problems and reduced responses to displays of distress in others. To explore how deficits in emotion-processing are associated with CU traits, the current study examined the association between callous-unemotionality and a neural index of facial emotion processing, using the event-related potential technique in a group of 3-5 year olds. Children viewed a series of static emotional faces, depicting either fear or happiness, while electroencephalography data were collected. The N170 component, thought to index the neural processes associated with face perception, was examined along with CU traits. Findings suggest that the unemotional dimension of CU traits is associated with diminished emotion-processing responses to fearful faces. Reduced neural responses to facial depictions of fear could be a biomarker for unemotional traits in early childhood.

The development of neural responses to emotional faces: A review of evidence from event-related potentials during early and middle childhood

“…It is possible that age influences N170 amplitude in a non-linear manner. The study by Hoyniak et al (2019) with the youngest age group of children aged three to five years found significant age effects, whereby the N170 became larger with age. Rather than continuing to become larger with age, studies with older children sometimes found effects in the opposite direction.…”

“…Six studies investigated the relationship between N170 amplitude and age during early-to-middle childhood (see Table 2 ). Three studies reported significant age effects, however two studies reported that N170 amplitude became weaker (i.e., less negative) with increasing age ( Batty and Taylor, 2006 ; Meaux et al;, 2014 ), while one study found N170 amplitude became stronger (i.e., more negative) with age ( Hoyniak et al, 2019 ). The remaining three studies ( Battaglia et al, 2007 ; Chronaki et al, 2018 ; Miki et al, 2011 ) reported no meaningful changes in N170 amplitude with age.…”

“…Previous research has illustrated correlations between FEP ERPs during early-to-middle childhood and individual emotional skills ( Hileman et al, 2011 ). For example, Hoyniak et al (2019) reported that children aged three to five with higher levels of unemotional traits displayed reduced N170 amplitudes when viewing fearful facial stimuli. Additionally, Chronaki et al (2018) found that children aged five to 11 years with higher levels of trait anxiety and depression, recorded larger LPP amplitudes to angry facial stimuli.…”

Aware and tuned to care: Children with better distress recognition and higher sympathy anticipate more guilt after harming others

“…It should also be noted that fear—but not happiness, sadness, and anger—recognition showed significant main and interactive relations to ethical guilt. This aligns with studies documenting fear‐specific processing deficits in children who have difficulties feeling guilt (e.g., Hoyniak et al ., ). Guilt often revolves around actions that intend harm.…”

“…Most developmental studies concerning facial expression recognition and guilt consider relatively global callous‐unemotional (CU) traits. For example, children with higher CU traits took longer than controls to recognize increasingly sad facial expressions, were more likely to mistake fearful expressions for others (Blair, Colledge, Murray, & Mitchell, ), and showed blunted neural responses to fearful faces (Hoyniak et al ., ). However, the extent to which distress recognition factors into children's guilt per se remains unclear because CU traits include social‐emotional deficits beyond low guilt (e.g., low sympathy and low general affect; Frick, ).…”