Abstract
ObjectiveConduct disorder (CD) in females is associated with negative adult outcomes including mental health problems and personality disorders. Although recent neuroimaging studies have reported changes in neural activity during facial emotion processing in males with CD or callous-unemotional (CU) traits, there have been no neuroimaging studies specifically assessing females with CD. We addressed this gap by investigating whether female adolescents with CD show atypical neural activation when processing emotional or neutral faces.MethodWe acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 20 female adolescents with CD and 20 female control participants while they viewed angry, sad, and neutral faces.ResultsAn omnibus group (CD, control) by facial emotion (angry, sad, neutral) analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed main effects of facial emotion in superior temporal cortex, fusiform gyrus, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and insula, and main effects of group in medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and right anterior insula. Female participants with CD showed reduced medial OFC and increased anterior insula responses relative to healthy controls. There were no significant group × facial emotion interactions. Lifetime CD symptoms were negatively correlated with amygdala, superior temporal cortex, fusiform gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity for the contrast “all-faces versus fixation.” CU traits were negatively correlated with fusiform gyrus activity for the contrast sad versus neutral faces.ConclusionFemales with CD showed atypical neural activation during the processing of all facial expressions, irrespective of valence. Our results demonstrate that severity of CD symptoms and CU traits is important in explaining abnormal patterns of neural activity.
Highlights
Conduct disorder (CD) is characterized by a pervasive pattern of antisocial and violent behavior in which the rights of others are violated.[1]
All participants were assessed for CD, ODD, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance dependence, using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children (K-SADS).[26]
We did not observe significant interactions between group and facial emotion such that female adolescents with CD showed weaker differentiation between negative and neutral facial expressions compared with healthy controls
Summary
Conduct disorder (CD) is characterized by a pervasive pattern of antisocial and violent behavior in which the rights of others are violated.[1] CD is one of the most common disorders in adolescent females[2] and is associated with an increased risk of developing antisocial or borderline personality disorder, substance dependence, depression, and physical health problems in adulthood.[3,4,5,6] Despite this negative prognosis, we know relatively little about the neurobiological mechanisms underlying CD in females, as there have been few neuropsychological studies of this group, and as functional magnetic resonance
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