Genetic Underpinnings of Callous-unemotional Traits and Emotion Recognition in Children, Adolescents, and Emerging Adults

Overview

Journal J Child Psychol Psychiatry

Specialties Psychiatry
Psychology

Date 2019 Feb 20

PMID 30779145

Citations 5

Authors

Ashlee A Moore

Lance M Rappaport

R James Blair

Daniel S Pine

Ellen Leibenluft

Melissa A Brotman

John M Hettema

Roxann Roberson-Nay

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Callous-Unemotional (CU) and psychopathic traits are consistently associated with impaired recognition of others' emotions, specifically fear and sadness. However, no studies have examined whether the association between CU traits and emotion recognition deficits is due primarily to genetic or environmental factors.

Methods: The current study used data from 607 Caucasian twin pairs (N = 1,214 twins) to examine the phenotypic and genetic relationship between the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) and facial emotion recognition assessed via the laboratory-based Facial Expression Labeling Task (FELT).

Results: The uncaring/callous dimension of the ICU was significantly associated with impaired recognition of happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust. The unemotional ICU dimension was significantly associated with improved recognition of surprise and disgust. Total ICU score was significantly associated with impaired recognition of sadness. Significant genetic correlations were found for uncaring/callous traits and distress cue recognition (i.e. fear and sadness). The observed relationship between uncaring/callous traits and deficits in distress cue recognition was accounted for entirely by shared genetic influences.

Conclusions: The results of the current study replicate previous findings demonstrating impaired emotion recognition among youth with elevated CU traits. We extend these findings by replicating them in an epidemiological sample not selected or enriched for pathological levels of CU traits. Furthermore, the current study is the first to investigate the genetic and environmental etiology of CU traits and emotion recognition, and results suggest genetic influences underlie the specific relationship between uncaring/callous traits and distress cue (fear/sadness) recognition in others.

Citing Articles

Emotion Recognition Deficits in Children and Adolescents with Psychopathic Traits: A Systematic Review.

Diaz-Vazquez B, Lopez-Romero L, Romero E Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev. 2024; 27(1):165-219.

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Emotion Identification for Self and Other Associated with Callous-Unemotional Traits and Sex Differences in Early Adolescents.

Winters D, Sakai J Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2022; 55(2):564-574.

PMID: 36088498 DOI: 10.1007/s10578-022-01429-1.

Autonomic Nervous System Inflexibility During Parent-child Interactions is Related to Callous-unemotional Traits in Youth Aged 10-14 Years Old.

Perlstein S, Waller R, Wagner N, Byrd A, Vine V, Jennings J Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol. 2021; 49(12):1581-1592.

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Pediatric anxiety associated with altered facial emotion recognition.

Rappaport L, Di Nardo N, Brotman M, Pine D, Leibenluft E, Roberson-Nay R J Anxiety Disord. 2021; 82:102432.

PMID: 34146888 PMC: 8364876. DOI: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2021.102432.

In the eyes of the beholder: investigating the effect of visual probing on accuracy and gaze fixations when attending to facial expressions among primary and secondary callous-unemotional variants.

Kyranides M, Fanti K, Petridou M, Kimonis E Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2019; 29(10):1441-1451.

PMID: 31811576 PMC: 7501133. DOI: 10.1007/s00787-019-01452-z.

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