Facial emotion recognition in elderly people with Unipolar Depression

• Grant number: 15/21039-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2016
• End date: April 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Psychiatry
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Hortes Nisihara Chagas
• Grantee: Rafaela Andreas dos Santos Ribeiro
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Facial emotion recognition is essential for human interaction and social life, since this is related to the ability to interpret feelings and emotions of others people. Only one study evaluated this issue in elderly people with depression. Therefore, new and further research on this subject in the population of those 60 years of age is necessary. A case-control design study will be used to compare the recognition ability of six basic facial emotions (sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise, fear, and anger) between two groups: I) 20 elderly individuals with depression and II) 20 elderly individuals without depression (control group) matched for sex, age and education. The subjects will be selected from a screening in primary care. All selected subjects will be evaluated by a psychiatrist to confirm the diagnosis. After the selection, the following scales will be applied: PHQ-9, GDS-15 and Mini-Mental. The Emotion Recognition test will be used to assess the recognition of facial emotions. In this task, 99 short videos are presented that include faces of actors (male and female) going from neutral to a basic emotion that can be 40%, 60%, 80% or 100% intensity. Our hypothesis is that elderly people with depression exhibit deficits in identifying basic facial emotions compared to elderly people without depression.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

ANA JULIA DE LIMA BOMFIM; RAFAELA ANDREAS DOS SANTOS RIBEIRO; MARCOS HORTES NISIHARA CHAGAS. Reconhecimento de expressões faciais estáticas e dinâmicas das emoções em idosos com depressão maior. Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, v. 41, n. 2, p. 159-166, 2019-04-01. (15/21039-8, 15/16412-1)