The role of the cannabinoid receptor in adolescents′ processing of facial expressions |
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| Authors: | Anais Ewald Susanne Becker Angela Heinrich Tobias Banaschewski Luise Poustka Arun Bokde Christian Büchel Uli Bromberg Anna Cattrell Patricia Conrod Sylvane Desrivières Vincent Frouin Dimitri Papadopoulos‐Orfanos Jürgen Gallinat Hugh Garavan Andreas Heinz Henrik Walter Bernd Ittermann Penny Gowland Tomáš Paus Jean‐Luc Martinot Marie‐Laure Paillère Martinot Michael N. Smolka Nora Vetter Rob Whelan Gunter Schumann Herta Flor Frauke Nees the IMAGEN consortium |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany;2. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany;3. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria;4. Discipline of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Trinity College Institute of Neurosciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland;5. University Medical Centre Hamburg‐Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany;6. Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK;7. Medical Research Council – Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, London, UK;8. Department of Psychiatry, Universite de Montreal, CHU Ste Justine Hospital, Montreal, QC, Canada;9. Neurospin, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, CEA‐Saclay Center, Paris, France;10. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité‐Universit?tsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany;11. Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA;12. Physikalisch‐Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, Germany;13. School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK;14. Baycrest and Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, Rotman Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada;15. INSERM, UMR 1000, Research Unit Imaging and Psychiatry, CEA, DSV, I2BM‐Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot, Orsay, France;16. University Paris‐Sud 11, Orsay, France;17. University Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France;18. Psychiatry Department 91G16, Orsay Hospital, Orsay, France;19. AP‐HP, Department of Adolescent Psychopathology and Medicine, Maison de Solenn, Cochin Hospital, Paris, France;20. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Section 21. of Systems Neuroscience, Technische Universit?t Dresden, Dresden, Germany |
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| Abstract: | The processing of emotional faces is an important prerequisite for adequate social interactions in daily life, and might thus specifically be altered in adolescence, a period marked by significant changes in social emotional processing. Previous research has shown that the cannabinoid receptor CB1R is associated with longer gaze duration and increased brain responses in the striatum to happy faces in adults, yet, for adolescents, it is not clear whether an association between CBR1 and face processing exists. In the present study we investigated genetic effects of the two CB1R polymorphisms, rs1049353 and rs806377, on the processing of emotional faces in healthy adolescents. They participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging during a Faces Task, watching blocks of video clips with angry and neutral facial expressions, and completed a Morphed Faces Task in the laboratory where they looked at different facial expressions that switched from anger to fear or sadness or from happiness to fear or sadness, and labelled them according to these four emotional expressions. A‐allele versus GG‐carriers in rs1049353 displayed earlier recognition of facial expressions changing from anger to sadness or fear, but not for expressions changing from happiness to sadness or fear, and higher brain responses to angry, but not neutral, faces in the amygdala and insula. For rs806377 no significant effects emerged. This suggests that rs1049353 is involved in the processing of negative facial expressions with relation to anger in adolescence. These findings add to our understanding of social emotion‐related mechanisms in this life period. |
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| Keywords: | amygdala cannabinoid emotion limbic |
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