All these acoustic parameters are also impaired in neutral speech in schizophrenia, and may reflect, impairment in global prosody. In one study,27 acoustic measures were also compared with clinical ratings.1 The acoustic measure of percentage

of time talking was not correlated with the Global Rating of Alogia. Acoustic measures of pitch were not, correlated with the Scale for the Assessment, of Negative Symptoms (SANS) item, lack of vocal inflection. The acoustic measure of response latency was not. correlated with the SANS item, increased latency of response. This underlines the difficulty of giving a precise clinical rating to these acoustic Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical items, and Alpert et al27 came to the conclusion that, ratings of negative symptoms are influenced by an undifferentiated global impression. Automatic recordings Computer analyses and electromyography (EMG)’28 have been used to record facial muscle actions. Although these kinds of analysis cannot, predict which emotion is expressed, they can detect observable and unobscrvable facial muscle activity, and authors estimate that. most, of the facial behavior recorded by EMG corresponds to subtle, covert, muscular activity. Some

authors29 have hypothesized that, covert facial expressions are Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical a rudimentary emotional Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical reaction, while a higher intensity is required to produce overt facial emotional expressions. Two facial muscles have been particularly studied: the zygomaticus major muscle, whose action draws

the end of the mouth up and back (recorded at lip corners), and the corrugator supercilium muscle, whose action draws the brows together (recorded above the brows). The zygomatic muscle is involved in smiles, while the corrugator muscle is involved in Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical most negative facial emotional expressions. It, should also be kept, in mind that nonemotional components, such as effort, concentration, and puzzlement, are known to ZD1839 increase corrugator activity. Four studies10,28,30,31 recorded the zygomatic activity during induced positive emotions, and three reported a lower EMG activity in schizophrenia. These studies are consistent with the idea that IWSs smile less MRIP frequently than NCSs. Concerning corrugator activity, two> EMG studies found no differences between IWSs and NCSs during pleasant, activity. During negative affect conditions, one study30 reported similar corrugator activity between groups, whereas three other studies reported an increase in corrugator activity when compared with NCSs. Compared with depressive groups, one study8 found no difference in overall computerized facial muscle activity.