Facial emotion decoding in patients with Parkinson's disease

ABSTRACT

Purpose. In line with the growing attention on non-motor symptoms and disturbance of affective and emotional processing in Parkinson’s disease, we aimed to study the different aspects of facial emotion expression evaluation in a group of Parkinson’s disease without cognitive decline in treatment with common antiparkinsonian drugs, matched for sex, age and education with healthy subjects.

Materials and methods. The study was conducted on 30 patients (13 male; mean age: 63.3 ± 6.7; mean age of disease onset: 56.5 ± 7.1; mean duration of the disease: 6.7 ± 2.6) with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and receiving dopaminergic therapy, as compared with 30 healthy controls. Different tasks of facial expression evaluation were used. All patients were assessed for neuropsychological and psychological profiles during optimized medication-on condition.

Results. The total number of errors in facial emotion recognition task is higher (p < 0.001) in patients than controls and it is due to errors in identifying sadness (p < 0.001), anger (p = 0.01) and fear (p < 0.001). No differences in the total amount of activation, valence and intensity ratings were found. The difference between patients and controls in emotion recognition appears to be independent by the severity of depressive symptoms.

Conclusions. The present study provides further evidence of altered non-verbal emotional information processing in Parkinson’s disease patients, suggesting that nigrostriatal dopaminergic depletion leads also to emotional information processing dysfunction. The consequences of these emotional encoding disturbances in daily living and their relationship to mood and behavioural disorders remain to be clarified.

KEYWORDS:

• Parkinson's disease
• emotions
• facial expressions
• facial emotion recognition

Acknowledgments

This study was partially supported by the Neurone Foundation for research in neuropsychobiology and clinical neurosciences which provided some materials for testing.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marco De Risi

Marco De Risi is a psychologist trained in epileptology. He is a staff neuropsychologist of the Epilepsy Surgery Centre of the IRCCS NEUROMED, Pozzilli (IS), Italy.

Giancarlo Di Gennaro

Giancarlo Di Gennaro is a neurologist trained in epileptology. He is the head of the Epilepsy Surgery Centre of IRCCS NEUROMED, Pozzilli (IS), Italy.

Angelo Picardi

Angelo Picardi is a psychiatrist trained in epidemiology, statistics and science methodology. He is a senior researcher at the Centre for Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health, Italian National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy.

Sara Casciato

Sara Casciato is a neurologist trained in epileptology. She is a staff neurologist of the Epilepsy Surgery Centre of IRCCS NEUROMED, Pozzilli (IS), Italy.

Liliana G. Grammaldo

Liliana G. Grammaldo is a psychologist trained in epileptology. She directs the neuropsychology laboratory of the Epilepsy Surgery Centre of IRCCS NEUROMED, Pozzilli (IS), Italy.

Alfredo D'Aniello

Alfredo D'Aniello is a neurologist trained in epileptology. He is a staff neurologist of the Epilepsy Surgery Centre of the IRCCS NEUROMED, Pozzilli (IS), Italy.

Deborah Lanni

Deborah Lanni is a phisical therapist. She is a staff therapist of Parkinson's Disease Center of the Epilepsy Surgery Centre of IRCCS NEUROMED, Pozzilli (IS), Italy.

Stefano Meletti

Stefano Meletti is a neurologist trained in epileptology. He directs the Epilepsy Center of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy.

Nicola Modugno

Nicola Modugno is neurologist trained in movements disorders. He directs the Parkinson's Disease Center of the IRCCS NEUROMED, Pozzilli (IS), Italy.