TY - JOUR
T1 - The recognition of facial emotions in spinocerebellar ataxia patients
AU - D'Agata, Federico
AU - Caroppo, Paola
AU - Baudino, Bruno
AU - Caglio, Marcella
AU - Croce, Michela
AU - Bergui, Mauro
AU - Tamietto, Marco
AU - Mortara, Paolo
AU - Orsi, Laura
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Patients with cerebellar lesions present some affective and cognitive disorders, defining a peculiar pattern of cognitive impairment, so-called cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome. This pattern has been confirmed in many genotypes of spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA), a group of genetically defined pathologies characterized by the degeneration of the cerebellum and its connections. Recently, in SCA patients, some authors focused the interest on social cognition evidencing an impairment of theory of mind and basic emotion recognition by verbal material. The recognition of emotions in faces is an essential component of social cognition; therefore, we assessed this ability in SCA patients, expanding the study from the basic verbal emotions to the basic and social visual emotion recognition. We assessed facial emotion recognition using two basic and social emotion tasks in a group of SCA patients together with a complete clinical and neuropsychological evaluation. We compared results with the performance of a control group. We demonstrated a significant difference between patients and controls both in basic and social emotion recognition, although we found a specific impairment only for social emotions. The deficit was not correlated to clinical and demographic features. The cognitive and psychological profile did not explain the impairment in emotion recognition. This result supports the hypothesis that the impairment in social emotion recognition could be specifically related to a defect in the corticocerebellar network.
AB - Patients with cerebellar lesions present some affective and cognitive disorders, defining a peculiar pattern of cognitive impairment, so-called cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome. This pattern has been confirmed in many genotypes of spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA), a group of genetically defined pathologies characterized by the degeneration of the cerebellum and its connections. Recently, in SCA patients, some authors focused the interest on social cognition evidencing an impairment of theory of mind and basic emotion recognition by verbal material. The recognition of emotions in faces is an essential component of social cognition; therefore, we assessed this ability in SCA patients, expanding the study from the basic verbal emotions to the basic and social visual emotion recognition. We assessed facial emotion recognition using two basic and social emotion tasks in a group of SCA patients together with a complete clinical and neuropsychological evaluation. We compared results with the performance of a control group. We demonstrated a significant difference between patients and controls both in basic and social emotion recognition, although we found a specific impairment only for social emotions. The deficit was not correlated to clinical and demographic features. The cognitive and psychological profile did not explain the impairment in emotion recognition. This result supports the hypothesis that the impairment in social emotion recognition could be specifically related to a defect in the corticocerebellar network.
KW - Cerebellum
KW - Facial emotion recognition
KW - Neuropsychology
KW - SCA
KW - Spinocerebellar ataxia
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84943015763&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84943015763&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12311-011-0276-z
DO - 10.1007/s12311-011-0276-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84943015763
VL - 10
SP - 600
EP - 610
JO - Cerebellum
JF - Cerebellum
SN - 1473-4222
IS - 3
ER -