EEG correlates of face recognition in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: A systematic review

Neurophysiological Face Processing Deficits in Patients With Chronic Schizophrenia: An MEG Study

“…Our finding of an M170 reduction in response to faces in patients with chronic SZ is consistent with the face-sensitive N170 attenuations reported in a meta-analysis ( 10 ) and a recent systematic review ( 30 ). The meta-analysis reported that the effect size of the face-sensitive N170 reduction was 0.64 ( 10 ).…”

“…However, it should be noted that the sample size for our correlational analyses may not be sufficient, which needs to be replicated in more extensive sample studies. One recent systematic review (30) reported a tendency for an association between a face-sensitive N170 reduction and higher severity of positive and negative symptoms. The authors suggested that the face-sensitive N170 may be useful for evaluating social functioning and rehabilitation efficacy.…”

Automatic Processing Advantage of Cartoon Face in Internet Gaming Disorder: Evidence From P100, N170, P200, and MMN

“…In view of the above two studies and the fact that the DSM-5 and ICD-11 list IGD as a psychiatric disorder to be studied, we speculate that the early face processing of individuals with IGD may have reached the level of mental impairment, leading to the convergence of their face sensitivities to realistic and cartoon faces in the left hemisphere. Meanwhile, some researchers found that the amplitude of N170 was significantly correlated with the scores of social scales (52), and suggested that the decrease of N170 might be related to the impairment of social function (53). It also implied that the clinical manifestations of IGD individuals' difficulty in normal communication with others may be related to their abnormal early visual perception of faces.…”

Facial Expression Processing Across the Autism–Psychosis Spectra: A Review of Neural Findings and Associations With Adverse Childhood Events

“…Unlike fMRI, EEG has a very high temporal resolution and is therefore optimal for studying the temporal course of facial expression processing (58). Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been widely used to investigate the neural mechanisms supporting facial expression processing in different populations, including individuals with ASD [for reviews, see (59)(60)(61)(62)] and individuals with primary psychosis (63,64). Research has pinpointed the N170, an ERP component with a negative peak occurring ∼170 ms after stimulus onset, as a consistent marker of face processing as it is more responsive to faces than objects (58,65,66).…”

“…Most importantly, the N170 does not consistently categorize individuals and does not measure a specific impairment (facial expression processing) related to a specific clinical profile (e.g., ASD). Moreover, disentangling the specific neural response to the facial expression from the general neural face processing response is challenging, especially since deficits in general (neutral) face processing have also been reported in both ASD (177,189) and primary psychosis (64,145,179). Accordingly, and in spite of many studies claiming otherwise [e.g., (58,61)], it is highly questionable whether the N170 may ever fulfill its promise of being a sensitive biomarker for aberrant socioemotional sensitivity and definitely not for disorder-specific dysfunction [e.g., (121,185,190)].…”