Social Cognition in Patients With Hypothalamic-Pituitary Tumors.

Jale Özyurt,Aylin Mehren,Hermann L Müller,Svenja Boekhoff,Christiane M Thiel

doi:10.3389/fonc.2020.01014

Abstract

Objectives: The current study aimed to investigate whether childhood-onset craniopharyngioma patients are impaired in social-cognitive skills, and whether individual differences in task performance are modulated by the neurohormone oxytocin.Study design: We tested 31 adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma patients with and without hypothalamic lesions and 35 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. To test for between-group differences in social-cognitive skills, we experimentally assessed participants' abilities to interpret social signs or dispositions and to understand others' thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Associations between fasting oxytocin saliva concentrations and task performance were analyzed across the whole group of participants.Results: Compared to controls, patients with hypothalamic lesions were significantly less able to identify the correct emotional content of vocal expressions and to understand others' mental states. Judgements of trustworthiness were not different between patients and controls. There were no correlations between the primary measures of task performance and fasting oxytocin saliva concentrations.Conclusions: This is the first study to show that craniopharyngioma patients with hypothalamic lesions are impaired in some aspects of social cognition, which are of high relevance for everyday social interactions. These deficits suggest a disruption of the normal functionality of hypothalamic-fronto-limbic networks and/or additional areas of the social brain, which are at particular risk by hypothalamic location of the tumor and its treatment.

Highlights

The term social cognition refers to psychological processes, which underlie social behavior, enabling individuals to successfully interact with conspecifics and to navigate in social environments
Categorization of the BDI-II and State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) results revealed that none of the patients had scores indicating moderate or severe symptoms of depression and only four CP with hypothalamic lesions (HL) had STAI trait scores, which exceeded +1.5 standard deviations when compared to STAI norms
The current study provides initial evidence that CP with HL compared to healthy controls are less able to successfully evaluate social signs and to understand other people’s thoughts, intentions, and feelings

Summary

Introduction

The term social cognition refers to psychological processes, which underlie social behavior, enabling individuals to successfully interact with conspecifics and to navigate in social environments It includes more basic operations, such as recognizing dispositions and emotions of others (e.g., from vocal or facial expressions or biological motion), and high-level representations, enabling to read others’ mental states, such as feelings, beliefs, intentions, and desires [1]. 30–50% of the cases are diagnosed during childhood and adolescence [8] Due to their location and growth patterns, the histologically benign tumors (WHO Grade 1) represent a significant risk for the integrity of the hypothalamus and associated frontolimbic networks, which are key components of the social brain [2, 9, 10]. Patients’ close others complained about reduced empathy and impairments in social relations, related to socialcognitive skills, such as understanding others’ thoughts and emotional states

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