Emotion processing, the amygdala, and outcome in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a highly complex disorder characterized by multiple independent domains of disease-namely positive, cognitive, and affective symptom clusters. Functional deficits associated with positive and (more recently) cognitive symptoms, as well as the deconstruction of these symptoms into their corresponding neural circuits, are widely discussed in the literature. To the contrary, while a link between affective symptoms and emotion processing circuitry has been hypothesized, it has been considerably less widely discussed in the literature. Here, we review deficits in the processing of emotion in schizophrenia, the role of the amygdala in the context of these deficits, and the functional implications of this relationship upon patient outcome.