Neural correlates associated with impaired disgust processing in pre-symptomatic Huntington's disease

Abstract

Disturbances in recognizing facial expressions of disgust have been reported previously in pre-symptomatic and manifest Huntington's disease. Given the substantial role of the insula and basal ganglia in the perception of disgust as revealed by functional imaging, lesion studies and intracerebral recordings, we propose dysfunction within the insula and/or basal ganglia as the underlying neural substrate. Using functional MRI (fMRI), we studied a group of nine pre-symptomatic Huntington's disease gene carriers and nine healthy controls, matched for age, gender, intelligence and years of education, while they were viewing disgusted facial expressions. As control conditions, surprised and neutral expressions were presented. Compared with healthy controls, Huntington's disease gene carriers showed reduced responses within the left dorsal anterior insula during processing of disgusted facial expressions. Moreover, processing of disgust was associated with significant activation of the left dorsal anterior insula and putamen in healthy controls, but not in Huntington's disease gene carriers. Furthermore, behavioural assessment revealed a selective impairment in recognizing facial expressions displaying disgust in Huntington's disease gene carriers. Our finding of dysfunctional decreased insula activation in pre-symptomatic Huntington's disease provides an explanation for the clinical deficit in recognizing facial expression of disgust. Furthermore, it underscores the role of the insula in the emotion of disgust.

Emotion perception and electrophysiological correlates in Huntington’s disease

“…This provides a replication of previous research reporting poorer recognition accuracy for disgust in HD (e.g., Hennenlotter et al, 2004, Montagne et al, 2006, Sprengelmeyer et al, 1996. However, as impairment to angry faces was also observed, the present study does not support the notion that disgust (or the neural processes subserving its recognition) is qualitatively different to other negative emotions, but accords well with recent studies reporting deficits in other negative emotion processing (specifically anger).…”

“…Other published studies have reported similar findings in HD (Hennenlotter et al, 2004, Montagne et al, 2006. However, studies with differing findings questioned the degree of impairment for disgust and implicated a universal deficit across basic negative emotions, primarily anger and fear (Calder et al, 2010, Henley et al, 2008, Milders et al, 2003, Snowden et al, 2008.…”

Emotion recognition and experience in Huntington disease: a voxel-based morphometry study

“…1 However, before the occurrence of motor symptoms, deficits in cognitive and affective processing have been observed in gene carriers. 2,3 Impairments in cognitive performance concern functions such as attention, memory and visuo-spatial processing. 4 These dysfunctions are already present in individuals who carry the gene mutation but display no overt motor symptoms.…”

The neuropsychology of first impressions: Evidence from Huntington's disease

“…A number of studies have found a disproportionately severe deficit in disgust recognition in the pre-symptomatic (Gray, Young, Barker, Curtis, & Gibson, 1997;Hennenlotter, et al, 2004;Sprengelmeyer, et al, 2006) and symptomatic stages of the disorder Sprengelmeyer, et al, 1996;Wang, Hoosain, Yang, Meng, & Wang, 2003), and there are findings indicating that the experience of disgust itself can also be affected (Hayes, Stevenson, & Coltheart, 2007;Mitchell, Heims, Neville, & Rickards, 2005). In these studies, however, the disproportionately severe deficit with disgust is mostly found within the context of more widespread problems in emotion recognition, and especially recognition of anger (Calder, et al, 2010).…”