Determination of emotional endophenotypes: A validation of the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales and further perspectives

The study of endophenotypes, notably with configured self-reports, represents a promising research pathway to overcome the limits of a syndromal approach of psychiatric diseases. The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) is a self-report questionnaire, based on neuroethological considerations, that could help to assess emotional endophenotypes related to the activity in 6 core cerebral emotional systems (FEAR, ANGER, SADNESS, CARING, PLAYFULNESS, SEEKING). We further investigated its psychometric properties among 830 young adults and showed that they were satisfactory. As participants also completed several other self-reports that shared potential traits with the ANPS, we offer new validity evidence based on relations to other variables. We also provide additional evidence to consider that the ANPS scores can be validly interpreted for the characterization of emotional endophenotypes involved in a variety of psychiatric disorders. On the grounds of present results, of previous clinical studies, as well as some preliminary neuroimaging findings, we discuss new steps in the ANPS validation.