Kinematical analysis of emotionally induced facial expressions in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder

Background: Motor function is deficient in many patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), especially in the face. To investigate subtle motor dysfunction, kinematical analysis of emotional facial expressions can be used. Our aim was to investigate facial movements in response to humorous film stimuli in OCD patients.; Method: Kinematical analysis of facial movements was performed. Ultrasound markers at defined points of the face provided exact measurement of facial movements, while subjects watched a humorous movie (‘Mr Bean’). Thirty-four OCD patients (19 male, 15 female; mean (S.D.) age: 35·8 (11·5) years; mean (S.D.) total Y-BOCS score: 25·5 (5·9)) were studied in unmedicated state and after a 10-week treatment with the SSRI sertraline. Thirty-four healthy controls (19 male, 15 female; mean (S.D.) age: 37·5 (13·1) years) were also investigated.; Results: At baseline, OCD patients showed significantly slower velocity at the beginning of laughing than healthy controls and a reduced laughing frequency. There was a significant negative correlation between laughing frequency and severity of OCD symptoms. Ten weeks later a significant increase of laughing frequency and initial velocity during laughing was found.; Conclusions: Execution of adequate facial reactions to humour is abnormally slow in OCD patients. Susceptibility of OCD patients with regard to emotional stimuli is less pronounced than in healthy subjects. This phenomenon is closely correlated to OCD symptoms and is state-dependent.Peer Reviewe

Kinematical analysis of emotionally induced facial expressions: a novel tool to investigate hypomimia in patients suffering from depression

Methods: Using ultrasound markers at certain points on the face, facial movements were exactly measured while subjects watched a witty sketch ("Mr Bean"). Twenty five medicated patients with depression (11 men, 14 women; mean age, 55.8 years; mean total Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score, 17.1) and 25 healthy controls, matched by sex distribution and handedness, were studied. Results: Depressed patients were characterised by abnormally slow velocity at the beginning of laughing and voluntary facial movements, in addition to reduced laughing frequency. A higher severity of symptoms of depression was significantly associated with slow initial velocity of laughing movements of the left mouth angle (r = –0.45). Conclusion: The execution of voluntary and non-voluntary facial movements is abnormally slow in depressed patients, reflecting hypomimia. This mimic slowing is closely associated with the severity of depression. The response of depressed patients to emotional stimuli is also abnormally low, but emotional estimation of the stimuli is similar to normals. This pattern parallels the motor–emotional features known from patients with Parkinson's disease

Assessment of handedness using a digitizing tablet: a new method.

The assessment of handedness is of interest in some psychiatric populations, above all in schizophrenic patients, because there may be a relationship between neurodevelopmental, hemispheric damage and psychiatric disease processes (Crow TJ. Schizophrenia Bulletin 1990;16:433-443; Tyler M, Diamond J, Lewis S. Schizophrenia Research 1995;18:37-41). Various methods to assess handedness have been proposed. In order to detect the most precise instrument for the assessment of handedness, two different measures, a questionnaire and a computational procedure for movement analysis, were compared in a group of healthy subjects. The ability of the methods to discriminate not only between the groups of right-handers (n=12) and left-handers (n=23), but also between left-handers trained in school to use the non-dominant right hand ('inconsistent' left-handers; n=11) and those allowed to use their left hand for writing ('consistent' left-handers; n=12) was investigated. For future investigations, our main concern was to determine if one method had superiority over the other. The results revealed that the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) distinguishes just as well as the computational method between right-handers and non-right-handers. However, more precise discrimination between the subgroups of 'consistent' and 'inconsistent' left-handers is possible using digitized analysis of hand-motor performance. According to our results handedness should be assessed not only with the EHI, but also with the computer-aided analysis of hand-movements

Association of catechol-O-methyltransferase variants with loudness dependence of auditory evoked potentials

OBJECTIVE: The loudness dependence of auditory evoked potentials (LDAEP) provides a measure of the central serotonergic activity. As dopamine transporter availabilities also correlate with LDAEP, a dopaminergic influence is probable. The enzyme catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is involved in the inactivation of synaptic dopamine. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between genetic variants of the COMT gene influencing synaptic dopamine levels and the LDAEP. METHODS: Rs737865 in intron 1, rs4680 coding for a Val158Met substitution and rs165599 in the 3' region were investigated in 95 carefully selected healthy subjects of German descent (41 males, 54 females). The LDAEP was calculated as a linear regression slope with stimulus intensity as independent and N1/P2-amplitude as dependent variables. RESULTS: Single marker analysis showed weak associations for two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs737865: CC vs. T allele carrier; rs4680: G-allele carrier vs. AA homozygotes). A-G (rs4680-rs165599) was associated with lower LDAEP scores. Accordingly, haplotype analysis with all SNPs (rs737865-rs4680-rs165599) showed that the T-A-G haplotype was associated with lower scores. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the hypothesis that the LDAEP is also influenced by dopaminergic transmission. However, replications of these very preliminary but potentially important findings in independent samples are needed

Handwriting Kinematic Differences Between Copying and Dictation

Handwriting is a human activity that may be affected by the modality used as input of the information to be written, mainly copying or dictation. Many processes at different levels are involved to produce motor planning and graphomotor automation of handwriting. In order to quantify possible kinematic differences due to the influence of auditory or visual input modalities to these processes, three different tests were proposed to a sample of 101 young students and several kinematics parameters measuring handwriting characteristics were evaluated. The tests required to copy as accurate (CA) and as fast (CF) as possible an Italian sentence and to write the same sentence under dictation (DF). All parameters showed significant differences between each pair of the three tests. The best performance was obtained in the CF test followed by the DF and CA tests; in the latter the greater accuracy required to produce writing yielded lower velocity and automation as well as a longer motor planning time. On the other hand, the dictation response was more similar to that of CF than CA showing a larger planning time, probably due to a different time necessary to correctly identify the words to reproduce. The combination of the two tests could be useful to study the impairment of either visual or auditory input