A more realistic approach, using dynamic stimuli, to test facial emotion recognition impairment in temporal lobe epilepsy

Abstract

To explore potentially impaired social functioning in patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE), we evaluated facial emotion recognition (FER) using dynamic facial stimuli. We evaluated FER in 88 patients with MTLE, including 25 posttemporal lobectomy (PTL) patients, when they watched videos of actors expressing the six basic emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust. Thirty-two healthy subjects were examined as controls. The relationships between task, performance, and neurophysiological and radiological variables potentially affecting the ability to recognize moving facial emotions were examined by multivariate analysis. Both the patients with MTLE and the PTL subset demonstrated significantly impaired FER compared with healthy controls. Of the six emotions, they showed impaired recognition of sadness, fear, and disgust. Facial emotion recognition was impaired in patients with chronic MTLE, particularly those with bilateral damage. Failure to recognize emotional expressions, particularly fear, disgust, and sadness, may contribute to difficulties in social functioning and relationship building.