Findings from Prechter Program researchers were featured in PsychiatryAdvisor. First author, Dr. Margo Menkes, summarizes her findings:
We used electroencephalography (EEG) to examine people's electrical brain signals while processing emotional faces. Specifically, we looked at differences in brain activity (P300 event-related potential [ERP]) after seeing faces with either emotional (happy, sad, or angry) or neutral expressions. The magnitude of the brainwaves in people with bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and schizophrenia differed from that of people without any psychiatric illness. This may make it more difficult for people with these disorders to process emotional information around them. Additionally, study participants with bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and schizophrenia all showed more difficulty in differentiating between emotional and neutral faces, compared to people without any psychiatric illness. With more research, treatments that train these skills or target these brain differences may be able to help improve outcomes for people with these illnesses.