Sensory contribution to vocal emotion deficit in Parkinson's disease after subthalamic stimulation

Abstract

Subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease induces modifications in the recognition of emotion from voices (or emotional prosody). Nevertheless, the underlying mechanisms are still only poorly understood, and the role of acoustic features in these deficits has yet to be elucidated. Our aim was to identify the influence of acoustic features on changes in emotional prosody recognition following STN stimulation in Parkinson’s disease. To this end, we analysed the performances of patients on vocal emotion recognition in pre-versus post-operative groups, as well as of matched controls, entering the acoustic features of the stimuli into our statistical models. Analyses revealed that the post-operative biased ratings on the Fear scale when patients listened to happy stimuli were correlated with loudness, while the biased ratings on the Sadness scale when they listened to happiness were correlated with fundamental frequency (F0). Furthermore, disturbed ratings on the Happiness scale when the post-operative patients listened to sadness were found to be correlated with F0. These results suggest that inadequate use of acoustic features following subthalamic stimulation has a significant impact on emotional prosody recognition in patients with Parkinson’s disease, affecting the extraction and integration of acoustic cues during emotion perception.

Pre‐frontal‐insular‐cerebellar modifications correlate with disgust feeling blunting after subthalamic stimulation: A positron emission tomography study in Parkinson's disease

“…To this end, the performances on vocal emotion recognition of pre‐ versus postoperative patient groups were analysed, and the acoustic features of the stimuli were entered into statistical models. Results showed that inadequate use of acoustic features (e.g., loudness or fundamental frequency) following STN stimulation explained part of the variance of emotional prosody recognition disturbances in patients with PD and that this surgery appears to affect the extraction and integration of acoustic cues during emotion perception (Péron, Cekic, et al ., ). From these recent results, as well as reports of the emotional effects of STN DBS in the PD literature, Péron et al .…”

“…Interestingly, a variety of evidence shows that the basal ganglia are sensitive to rhythm (Kotz & Schwartze, ), and Péron, Cekic, et al . () sought to test this hypothesis in the emotional domain by identifying the potential influence of acoustic features on changes in emotional prosody recognition following STN stimulation in patients with PD. To this end, the performances on vocal emotion recognition of pre‐ versus postoperative patient groups were analysed, and the acoustic features of the stimuli were entered into statistical models.…”

Hemispheric specialization of the basal ganglia during vocal emotion decoding: Evidence from asymmetric Parkinson's disease and 18FDG PET

“…A basal ganglia dysfunction would presumably create a noisy signal, desynchronizing the transiently connected systems needed for the process to take place at Time T. At the behavioral level, this would translate into a disturbance in, say, the decoding of affective cues. Some of the model's predictions have already been demonstrated (Peron et al, 2015;Peron, Fruhholz, Ceravolo, & Grandjean, 2016;Péron et al, 2017). However, the model does not deal with the possible hemispheric specialization of the basal ganglia within this process, and empirical evidence is contradictory, notably in the domain of vocal emotion decoding.…”

Deep Brain Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus does not negatively affect social cognitive abilities of patients with Parkinson’s disease

“…The DBS modifies dopaminergic transmission in the basal ganglia, affecting the limbic, associative, and motor networks via highly organised circuits 18 , 19 . These basal ganglia circuits are comprised of both cortical (orbitofrontal cortex, temporal sulcus, temporal poles, cingulate gyrus and prefrontal cortex) and subcortical regions (amygdala and ventral striatum), and correspond with structures that also mediate social cognition 20 , 21 . Furthermore, the basal ganglia networks also directly target the prefrontal cortex, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex.…”