| |
Abstract:
Recent research has suggested a link between the neural
substrates of emotional experience and those of emotion
recognition. This has been shown for the basic emotions of disgust
and fear, but not for other emotions such as anger. Most
neuroleptic drugs that act as dopamine D2 receptor antagonists are
anti-aggressive agents; e.g. the D2 antagonist sulpiride has an
anti-aggressive effect without markedly depressing motor activity.
Given the link between the recognition and experience of emotion,
we hypothesized that administration of sulpiride would selectively
impair the recognition of anger expressed in the face. Fourteen
healthy male volunteers were administered either 400mg sulpiride or
placebo in a double-blind crossover design. Subjects completed two
tests of face processing: the Benton unfamiliar face matching task
and the emotion hexagon task, which involves the recognition of
computer morphed facial expressions of six basic emotions
(happiness, sadness, fear, disgust and anger). Administration of
sulpiride did not affect performance on the Benton test. On the
emotion hexagon task administration of sulpiride lead to impaired
recognition of angry faces, but spared recognition of the other
basic emotions. Thus, as predicted, administration of the
anti-aggressive agent sulpiride impaired the recognition of anger
in faces. These results extend previous studies of selective
impairments in the recognition of basic emotions, and are
suggestive of a link between the recognition and experience of
emotion.
|
