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Familial link found between conduct disorder and emotion recognition

Adolescents may have an increased chance of developing conduct disorder if emotion recognition impairments are present, according to a recent study published in Psychological Medicine. 

“This pattern of results supported our hypothesis that impaired emotion recognition would be observed in those who are at increased risk for developing [conduct disorder], as well as those who have actually developed this condition, suggesting that it is a familial risk marker or endophenotype for CD [conduct disorder],)" Kate Sully, a postgraduate research student in the academic unit of psychology from the University of Southampton in the UK, and colleagues said.

Researchers used a family-based design to investigate facial emotion recognition among 107 adolescents, aged 11 to 18 years. Participants were divided into three groups; probands with conduct disorder (n=43), their unaffected relatives (n=21) and healthy controls (n=38). Researchers then used the Emotion Hexagon task to study facial emotion recognition accuracy.

Results demonstrated that the conduct disorder group showed impaired recognition of anger, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise (P<0.005) compared to the controls. The unaffected relatives showed insufficiencies in recognizing anger and happiness, with a deficit in fear recognition, compared to controls (P<0.008).

After correction for multiple comparisons, no significant performance differences were found between the probands and the unaffected relatives, according to the researchers.

“Future studies could employ multiple tests of emotion recognition to provide comprehensive information about emotion recognition deficits in CD probands and their unaffected relatives,” researchers wrote.

Disclosure: Sonuga-Barke reports receiving speakers’ fees, research support and conference attendance funds from and is a consultant and advisory board member for Shire Pharmaceuticals. See the study for a full list of the researchers’ relevant financial disclosures.