Through your eyes or mine? The neural correlates of mental state recognition in H untington's disease

2019

Front. Psychiatry

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Social interaction is closely associated with both functional capacity and well-being. Previous research has not only revealed evidence of social dysfunction in individuals with a wide range of psychiatric and neurological disorders but also generated an abundance of potential measures for assessing social cognition. This review explores the most popular measures used within neuropsychiatric populations to investigate the ability to recognize or reason about the mental states of others. Measures are also critically analyzed in terms of strengths and limitations to aid task selection in future clinical studies. The most frequently applied assessment tools use verbal, visual or audiovisual forms of presentation and assess recognition of mental states from facial features, self-rated empathy, the understanding of other’s cognitive mental states such as beliefs and intentions, or the ability to combine knowledge of other’s thoughts and emotions in order to understand subtle communications or socially inappropriate behavior. Key weaknesses of previous research include limited investigation of relationships with clinical symptoms, and underutilization of measures of everyday social functioning that offer a useful counterpart to traditional “lab” tasks. Future studies should aim to carefully select measures not only based on the range of skills to be assessed but also taking into account potential difficulties with interpretation and the need to gain insight into the application of social cognitive skills as well as ability per se . Some of the best measures include those with well-matched control trials (e.g., Yoni Task) or those that restrict the influence of verbal deficits (e.g., intentions comic strip task), elicit spontaneous mentalizing (e.g., Animations Task), and possess greater ecological validity (e.g., Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition). Social cognitive research within psychiatric populations will be further enhanced through the development of more closely matched control tasks, and the exploration of relationships between task performance, medication, strategy use, and broader emotional and motor functions.

“…(308, 309)], although few studies have matched the tasks for difficulty [e.g., Refs. (310, 311)]. There is also a child version with 28 items (56).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Do You Have in Mind? Measures to Assess Mental State Reasoning in Neuropsychiatric Populations

2019

Front. Psychiatry

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“…In addition, recent studies suggest that while patients with HD struggle to recognise mental states during the RMET, they are as accurate as neurotypical individuals when judging physical states (i.e. judging age) based on the same stimuli (Eddy, Rickards and Hansen, 2018).…”

Section: Overview Of Social Cognition In Huntington's Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions in action: The relationship between motor function and social cognition across multiple clinical populations

Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry

Cook

2018

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Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal General rights Unless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law. • Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication. • Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research. • User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of 'fair dealing' under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) • Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain. Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.

“…Sometimes deficits on social cognitive tasks are correlated with executive deficits and/or motor symptoms ( 12 , 17 , 20 , 21 ). Having said this, they are unlikely to be completely explained by them, given that studies using control tasks can indicate selective impairment in emotion related reasoning ( 22 ). Moreover, social cognitive impairment can arise early in HD before motor signs or severe cognitive decline ( 18 , 23 ), as well as being correlated with reduced functional capacity ( 17 , 24 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social cognition and quality of life in Huntington's disease

Rickards

2022

Front. Psychiatry

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Individuals with Huntington's disease (HD) and their close others report difficulties with social interaction, and previous studies have shown that the areas of quality of life detrimentally impacted by HD include social and emotional domains. However, despite the finding that people with HD often exhibit difficulties on standard tests of social cognition, the relationship between such impairments and patients' everyday life has remained largely unexplored. We used a range of tasks assessing empathy, emotion recognition and Theory of Mind, to investigate whether patients' performance may predict quality of life within the social and emotional domains, while also accounting for broader cognitive function, behavioural changes, motor symptoms, disease stage and functional capacity. Poorer social functioning was predicted specifically by a reduced tendency to attribute intentionality while viewing social animations, in addition to emotional blunting and apathy, while role limitations due to emotional problems were predicted by personal distress, irritability and aspects of executive function. These findings highlight the potential impact of Theory of Mind impairment on quality of life in HD, and suggest that enhanced assessment of social cognition will offer unique insight into patients' social function and related wellbeing.