Authors: L Kemmis J K Hall R Kingston M J Morgan
Publish Date: 2007/06/08
Volume: 194, Issue: 2, Pages: 151-159
Abstract
Three groups comprised of 21 cocaine naïve participants CN 30 occasional cocaine OC and 48 regular recreational cocaine RC users were compared An emotional facial expression EFE task consisting of a male and female face expressing six basic emotions happiness surprise sadness anger fear and disgust was administered Mean percent accuracy and latencies for correct responses across eight presentations of each basic emotion were derived Participants were also assessed with the “Eyes task” to investigate their ability to recognize more complex emotional states and the Symptom CheckList90—Revised to measure psychopathologyThere were no group differences in psychopathology or “eyes task” performance but the RC group who otherwise had similar illicit substance use histories to the OC group exhibited impaired fear recognition accuracy compared to the OC and CN groups The RC group also correctly identified anger fear happiness and surprise more slowly than CN but not OC participants The OC group was slower than CN when correctly identifying disgust The selective deficit in fear recognition accuracy manifested by the RC group cannot be explained by the subacute effects of cocaine or ecstasy because recent and less recent users of these drugs within this group were similarly impaired Possible parallels between RC users and psychopaths with respect to impaired fear recognition amygdala dysfunction and etiology are discussed
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