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Psychophysiological responses to sadness in girls and boys with conduct disorder

Authors:
Angeliki Konsta, Anka Bernhard, Anne Martinelli, Aranzazu Fernandez-Rivas, Areti Smaragdi, Arne Popma, Beate Herpertz-Dahlmann, Christina Stadler, Christine M. Freitag, Eva Sesma-Pardo, Foteini Tsiakoulia, Graeme Fairchild, Gregor Kohls, Helena Oldenhof, Jack Rogers, Karen Gonzalez-Madruga, Katharina Ackermann, Kerstin Konrad, Krisztina Kapornai, Lucres Jansen, Lynn Valérie Fehlbaum, Maider Gonzalez de Artaza-Lavesa, Malou Gundlach, Mara Lotte van der Hoeven, Marleen Werner, Martin Steppan, Meinhard Kieser, Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Torres, Molly Batchelor, Noortje Vriends, Réka Siklósi, Robert Vermeiren, Roberta Clanton, Roberta Dochnal, Rosalind Baker, Ruth Pauli, Sarah Baumann, Sarah Goergen, Stephane de Brito, Zacharias Kalogerakis
Publication date:
2022
Journal/Publication:
Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science
Tags:
Conduct Disorder Emotions heart rate Human Sex Differences Parasympathetic Nervous System Psychophysiology Respiratory System Sadness

Abstract

Reduced responsiveness to emotions is hypothesized to contribute to the development of conduct disorder (CD) in children and adolescents. Accordingly, blunted psychophysiological responses to emotions have been observed in boys with CD, but this has never been tested in girls. Therefore, this study compared psychophysiological responses to sadness in girls and boys with and without CD, and different clinical phenotypes of CD: with versus without limited prosocial emotions (LPE), and with versus without comorbid internalizing disorders (INT). Nine-hundred and 27 girls (427 CD, 500 controls) and 519 boys (266 CD, 253 controls) aged 9–18 years participated. Psychophysiological responses were measured while participants watched two validated sad film clips, specifically: heart rate (HR), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; indexing parasympathetic activity), preejection period (PEP; indexing sympathetic activity). Girls and boys with CD showed larger HR responses to sadness than controls. This effect was rendered nonsignificant, however, after controlling for covariates. We observed aberrant RSA responses to sadness in CD compared with controls. Similarly, we found a significant positive association between RSA responsivity and antisocial behavior when assessed dimensionally. The effects were very small, though. Results were similar for boys and girls. We found no evidence for emotional underresponsiveness in CD in the largest psychophysiological study to date in this field. More research is needed to explore whether this is specific to sadness or generalizes to other emotions. Furthermore, we recommend that studies on emotion processing in CD assess different physiological measures to help disentangle CD-related effects on sympathetic and parasympathetic activity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)