Facial imitation in Psychiatric Disorder
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Facial imitation in mood disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia.
IRAS ID
130745
Contact name
James Cusack
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Aberdeen & NHS Grampian
Research summary
Although psychiatric disorders are seen as completely distinct from one another, the evidence to support this assertion is actually quite limited. Diagnosis of any given psychiatric disorder is normally based on subjective clinical judgments of behaviours occurring in the natural environment. An area where overlap is thought to be common is in facial expression. The aim of our project is to objectively measure the imitation of facial expression across three psychiatric disorders - borderline personality disorder, depression and schizophrenia. In addition to this we plan to measure effects of treatments currently used in NHS settings on facial expression. These treatments plan to improve outcomes which may relate to facial expression in distinct ways.
We will compare performance between disorders, and with a control - typically developing - population with no history of psychiatric disorder. We will also run unsupervised data analysis. The aim of this analysis will be to determine whether different clusters become evident which are independent of subjective classification. We will also run further experiments to control for any potential explanation which may drive any differences or commonalities found. In order to reduce the burden we will tailor our research programme to suit the need for control experiments in each clinical group. Matched typically developing controls will not be used to compare the effect of treatment, so will not undergo ECT or MBT.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
13/NS/0100
Date of REC Opinion
22 Aug 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion