Emotion recognition and self-versus-other referential learning in mood disorders and schizophrenia

Introduction Patients of depression and psychotic disorders are often troubled by unsatisfactory interpersonal relationships. While an inability to maintain a stable sense of self restricts one’s understanding another’s emotional state, whether disrupted self-versus-other referential processing is a transdiagnostic predictor of increased emotion misreading across diagnostic groups has not been explicated. Objectives We tested whether weakened differential learning between self and other may account for impoversihed emotion recognition accross mood and psychotic disorders. Methods Inpatients admitted for major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder (BD), and schizophrenia (SCZ; ns = 59, 32, and 43) and 40 healthy controls were recruited. Aside from ratings of depressive and schizophrenic symptoms by psychiatrists, participants were assessed on self- versus other- referential learning, emotion recognition, emotion sharing. Results Regression analysis indicates lower effectiveness of self-other tagging to be a predictor independent from symptom severity for increased emotion misrecognition across MDD, BD and SCZ ( F (8, 160) = 8.52, p < 0.001). Clinical groups showed lower accuracy for other-referential recall and emotion recognition, but comparable emotion sharing and self-prioritization to healthy controls. Image: Conclusions Heightened emotion misrecognition in MDD, CD, and SCZ patients can be traced back to the weakened ability in coordinating self- and other-representations according to task-demands. Future examinations on whether interventions on brain regions pertaining to self-versus-other learning might enhance emotion recognition in different patient groups would be clinically relevant. Disclosure of Interest None Declared