Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found clear disparities in the way males and females–both those with schizophrenia and those who are healthy–discern the mental states of others.
The research, the first of its kind, will be published online on October 30, in Social Neuroscience.
The research team examined emotional processing in 37 clinically stable participants diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, compared with 31 healthy controls. Subjects identified emotions of other people by looking at pictures of eyes and listening to stories. Smell tests were also administered to measure odor detection and odor identification ability. Most animal species rely on their sense of smell to determine the intentions of other animals. Intelligence scores measured more complex brain processing and olfactory or scent scores measured simpler mental processing.
