Social Cognition Disorders Research Articles

Diagnostic Accuracy of Affective Social Tasks in the Clinical Classification Between the Behavioral Variant of Frontotemporal Dementia and Other Neurodegenerative Disease.

Severe socio-emotional impairments characterize the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). However, literature reports social cognition disorders in other dementias. In this study, we investigated the accuracy of social cognition performances in the early and differential diagnosis of bvFTD. We included 131 subjects: 32 bvFTD, 26 Alzheimer's disease (AD), 16 primary progressive aphasia (PPA), 17 corticobasal syndrome (CBS), and 40 healthy control (HC). Each subject completed the Ekman 60 faces (Ek-60F) test assessing basic emotion recognition and the Story-based Empathy Task (SET) assessing attribution of intentions/emotions. A combined social measure (i.e., Emotion Recognition and Attribution (ERA) index) was calculated. One-way ANOVA has been used to compare performances among groups, while receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve tested measures ability to distinguish subjects with and without bvFTD. Ek-60F and ERA index scores were significantly lower in bvFTD versus HC, AD, and PPA groups. ROC analyses significantly distinguished bvFTD from HC (AUC 0.82-0.92), with the Ek-60F test showing the highest performance, followed by the ERA index. These two social measures showed the best accuracy in detecting bvFTD from AD (AUC 0.78-0.74) and PPA (AUC 0.80-0.76). Investigated measures failed in detecting bvFTD from CBS. Accuracy analyses support the advantage of using social cognition tests for bvFTD diagnosis. Short social battery may reduce uncertainties and improve disease identification in clinical settings. We recommend a revision of current clinical criteria considering neuropsychological deficits in emotion recognition and processing tasks as key cognitive markers of this neurodegenerative syndrome.

Transcranial electric stimulation as a neural interface to gain insight on human brain functions: current knowledge and future perspective.

The use of brain stimulation approaches in social and affective science has greatly increased over the last two decades. The interest in social factors has grown along with technological advances in brain research. Transcranial electric stimulation (tES) is a research tool that allows scientists to establish contributory causality between brain functioning and social behaviour, therefore deepening our understanding of the social mind. Preliminary evidence is also starting to demonstrate that tES, either alone or in combination with pharmacological or behavioural interventions, can alleviate the symptomatology of individuals with affective or social cognition disorders. This review offers an overview of the application of tES in the field of social and affective neuroscience. We discuss the issues and challenges related to this application and suggest an avenue for future basic and translational research.

On the Possibility to Use Oxytocin as A Potential Therapeutic Approach for Memory-Related Psychological Disorders

Studies have indicated that oxytocin has an influence on cognitive functions such as attention, memory and emotional regulation, particularly in the context of social and communicative behavior. There is a growing interest in the use of oxytocin as a treatment for memory-related psychological disorders and social cognitive disorders. The ease of access to the brain intranasally, numerous positive evidences and widely advertised as a wonder drug, foster this interest. However, recent studies also have shown that the effect of oxytocin could varied, even leading to reverse results. The factors that lead to the effects of oxytocin and its underlying processes on such variables are still uncertain. The inconsistent evidence of general oxytocin effects on memory and neuropsychological conditions is an important issue in considering oxytocin as an adjunct therapy. Therefore, understanding the effects of oxytocin, within various emotional and social context, is important before oxytocin could be efficiently used for improving learning and communication impairment or managing neuropsychological disorders. Here, we intend to review various theories regarding the effect of oxytocin on memory, accompanied by its mechanisms which are proposed in human and animal experiments. Based on evidence from these studies, we explore the potentials and limitations of oxytocin’s pharmacotherapeutic applications as a treatment to improve neuropsychological disorders.

High Prevalence of Social Cognition Disorders and Mild Cognitive Impairment Long Term After Stroke.

Social cognition disorders after stroke are poorly described. Yet, rehabilitation difficulties are frequent after stroke. This study aimed to evaluate the frequency of social cognition disorders 3 years after a first-ever stroke and to assess the factors associated with this condition. The second aim was to describe all the cognitive domains altered in the same population. Patients who suffered from a first-ever ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke underwent clinical and neuropsychological assessment, which included the mini-Social cognition and Emotional Assessment (SEA) for evaluating social cognition. The 43 included patients were 67±15 years old, with a median Neurological Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) (± interquartile range) at 0±1, and a median modified Rankin Scale (± interquartile range) at 1±1. Twenty patients (46.5%) had poor results in the facial emotions subtest; this factor was associated with a low educational grade (P=0.001). Fourteen patients (34.2%) had poor results on the "faux-pas" recognition subtest; this factor was associated with nonverbal episodic memory disorders (P=0.01). Thirty four patients (79.1%) had cognitive impairment, with at least 1 cognitive domain affected. The study demonstrates the high frequency of social cognition impairment 3 years after the first-ever stroke in young patients. Doctors and nurses should be sensitized to cognitive handicap after stroke because of difficulties for rehabilitation and returning to work.

Emotional processing and social cognition in alcohol use disorder.

To review deficits in emotional processing and social cognition potentially contributing to the dysfunctional emotion regulation and difficulties with interpersonal relationships observed in individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and to provide directions for future research. First is presented a review of emotional and social-cognitive impairments in recently detoxified AUD individuals that include alexithymia, difficulties in decoding others' emotions, and reduced theory of mind and empathy skills. Social cognition disorders in AUD pose different issues discussed, such as whether (1) these deficits are consequences of excessive alcohol consumption or premorbid risk factors for addiction, (2) emotional and social impairments impede positive treatment outcome, (3) recovery of social abilities is possible with sustained abstinence, and (4) AUD patients are unaware of their emotional and social dysfunctions. Finally, current knowledge on structural and functional brain correlates of these deficits in AUD are reviewed. Emotional and social-cognitive functions affected in AUD can potentially compromise efforts to initiate and maintain abstinence by hampering efficacy of clinical treatment. Such dysfunction can obstruct efforts to enable or reinstate higher-order abilities such as emotional self-regulation, motivation to change, success in interpersonal/social interactions, and emotional insight and awareness of social dysfunctions (i.e., accurate metacognition). The present review highlights the need to account for emotional processing and social cognition in the evaluation and rehabilitation of alcohol-related neurocognitive disorders and to consider psychotherapeutic treatment involving remediation of emotional and social skills as implemented in psychiatric and neurological disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Neural processing of social interaction: Coordinate-based meta-analytic evidence from human neuroimaging studies.

While the action observation and mentalizing networks are considered to play complementary roles in understanding others' goals and intentions, they might be concurrently engaged when processing social interactions. We assessed this hypothesis via three activation-likelihood-estimation meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies on the neural processing of: (a) social interactions, (b) individual actions by the action observation network, and (c) mental states by the mentalizing network. Conjunction analyses and direct comparisons unveiled overlapping and specific regions among the resulting maps. We report quantitative meta-analytic evidence for a "social interaction network" including key nodes of the action observation and mentalizing networks. An action-social interaction-mentalizing gradient of activity along the posterior temporal cortex highlighted a hierarchical processing of interactions, from visuomotor analyses decoding individual and shared intentions to in-depth inferences on actors' intentional states. The medial prefrontal cortex, possibly in conjunction with the amygdala, might provide additional information concerning the affective valence of the interaction. This evidence suggests that the functional architecture underlying the neural processing of interactions involves the joint involvement of the action observation and mentalizing networks. These data might inform the design of rehabilitative treatments for social cognition disorders in pathological conditions, and the assessment of their outcome in randomized controlled trials.

Oxytocin involves in chronic stress-evoked melanoma metastasis via β-arrestin 2-mediated ERK signaling pathway.

Stress is associated with an increased risk of lung metastasis in melanoma. However, the underlying mechanism is elusive. Oxytocin (OXT), a neurohormone produced by the hypothalamus, plays a vital role in laboring induction and lactation. Emerging evidence suggests that OXT also regulates human emotions, social cognition, social behaviors and stress-related disorders. Here, we reported that a significant up-regulation of oxytocin receptors (OXTRs) was observed in malignant melanoma. The activation of OXTRs dramatically promoted migration, invasion and angiogenesis but not the proliferation of melanoma cells in vitro and in vivo via β-arrestin 2-dependent ERK-VEGF/MMP-2 pathway. Next, chronic restraint stress significantly elevated the plasma level of OXT. Notably, 21 days chronic restraint stress facilitated lung metastasis of melanoma and reduced overall survival in mice, which were largely abrogated by knocking down either OXTR or β-arrestin 2. These findings provide evidence that chronic stress hormone-OXT promotes lung metastasis of melanoma via a β-arrestin 2-dependent mechanism and suggest that OXT, a novel pro-metastasis factor, is a potential therapeutic target for melanoma.

Heritability of reflexive social attention triggered by eye gaze and walking direction: common and unique genetic underpinnings.

Social attention ability is crucial for human adaptive social behaviors and interpersonal communications, and the malfunction of which has been implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a highly genetic neurodevelopmental disorder marked by striking social deficits. Using a classical twin design, the current study investigated the genetic contribution to individual variation in social and non-social attention abilities, and further probed their potential genetic linkage. Moreover, individual autistic traits were further measured in an independent group of non-twin participants to examine the hypothetical link between the core social attention ability and ASD. We found reliable genetic influences on the social attentional effects induced by two distinct cues (eye gaze and walking direction), with 91% of their covariance accounted for by common genetic effects. However, no evidence of heritability or shared genetic effects was observed for the attentional effect directed by a non-social cue (i.e. arrow direction) and its correlation with the social attention ability. Remarkably, one's autistic traits could well predict his/her heritable core social attention ability extracted from the conventional social attentional effect. These findings together suggest that human social attention ability is supported by unique genetic mechanisms that can be shared across different social, but not non-social, processing. Moreover, they also encourage the identification of 'social attention genes' and highlight the critical role of the core human social attention ability in seeking the endophenotypes of social cognitive disorders including ASD.

Choroba Alzheimera o wczesnym początku z perspektywy psychiatry i logopedy – na podstawie portretu osoby chorej kreowanego w książce Motyl L. Genovy i jej adaptacji filmowej

The article discusses the problems of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease with reference to the portrayal of a 50-year-old woman affected by this form of disease, presented in the book “Still Alice” (by Lisa Genova, 2011) and its film adaptation “Butterfly, Still Alice” (directed by R. Glatzer, W. Westmoreland, 2014). Individual domains of Alzheimer’s disease, i.e. of speech and language disorders (most room having been devoted to them), learning and memory disorders, social cognition, perception and motor function disorders, as well as executive function disorders were presented in the format of successive scenes from the book and the film. We believe that the two sources, the book and the film, help enter the world of Alzheimer’s disease with orientation to the patient’s problems and can be useful in early diagnosis and intervention regarding patients with the disease in question.

Les symptômes thymiques liés à l’usage d’alcool

Although the existence of links between alcohol consumption and thymic symptoms seems obvious, the nature and mechanisms underlying these interactions are, on the other hand, very complex and less well-known. This article, which relies mainly on empirical data and is intended for clinicians, aims to describe how understanding these thymic symptoms can identify avenues of work or levers for clinical work with alcohol-dependent patients. In particular, we develop the way in which acute consumption leads to emotional reactions, outside the context of abuse or dependence (symptom with the social framework of consumption, “binge-drinking”). Chronic consumption leading to abuse or dependence is then discussed, detailing how their biological interaction with the brain reward circuit significantly changes mood, based on a principle of allostasis. We also highlight the role of personality factors such as self-consciousness in the relationship between depression and craving. Furthermore we emphasize manifestations related to thymic symptoms such as social cognition disorders common in alcoholic patients, often leading to social isolation as well as conflicting interpersonal relationships which can in turn be factors of accentuation as far as depression symptoms are concerned.

Quality of life is related to the functional connectivity of the default mode network at rest.

Quality of life is an important issue concerning people all over the world and affecting patients in the mental health field. When considering the potential neural links between quality of life and the brain, a brain network that comes into mind is the default mode network (DMN). Its architecture and function has been investigated in relation to various research fields including social and emotional cognition, meditation and neuropsychiatric disorders as well as happiness. In this cross-sectional study we investigated the relationship between various quality of life domains (physiological, psychological, social and environmental) and the functional connectivity of the default mode network at rest in a sample of 42 healthy working female managers. The results indicate that there is a significant association between the social quality of life domain and the functional connectivity of the default mode network. Post-hoc analysis revealed that high social quality of life scores were associated with right-left lateral parietal hypoconnectivity. By adopting a wide ranging perspective, our study approaches to fundamental research about quality of life but so far only applied on a female subgroup. As far as we know, it is the first to analyze the neuronal correlates of quality of life in the brain and therefore sets an initial step in its investigation.

Measuring Reflective Functioning in Adolescents: Relations to Personality Disorders and Psychological Difficulties

Background: Reflective Functioning (RF) is considered to play a central role in risk and resilience for psychological difficulties such as borderline personality disorder (BPD) and has become an important treatment target of transdiagnostic psychosocial interventions like Mentalization Based Therapy. However, a lack of measures to assess RF in adolescents has hampered research that can further elucidate the role of RF in different types of psychopathology. Objective: The objective of the present study was to examine the validity of the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire for Youth (RFQ-Y), examine the factor structure of the french RFQ-Y, the relationship between RFQ-Y and social cognition, psychological difficulties, BPD and narcissistic personality disorders. Methods: A total of 533 adolescents and young adults (age 12 - 21) from the community completed the RFQ-Y, the Child Behaviour Checklist, the Borderline Personality Features Scale and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory. A subsample of 150 participants completed the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC). Results: Three factors were identified. Uncertainty/confusion was strongly positively correlated with psychological difficulties, especially symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Interest/curiosity was negatively correlated with and psychopathology and Excessive Certainty correlated significantly with grandiose narcissism. RFQ-Y factors correlated more strongly with psychopathology than the MASC scales. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the validity of self-report measures like the RFQ-Y and its utility for identifying problematic styles of mentalizing associated with increased risk of psychopathology in general, as well as difficulties like narcissism in particular.

Loss of white matter connections after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and its relationship to social cognition

Adults with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) often suffer poor social cognition. Social cognition is complex, requiring verbal, non-verbal, auditory, visual and affective input and integration. While damage to focal temporal and frontal areas has been implicated in disorders of social cognition after TBI, the role of white matter pathology has not been examined. In this study 17 adults with chronic, severe TBI and 17 control participants underwent structural MRI scans and Diffusion Tensor Imaging. The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT) was used to assess their ability to understand emotional states, thoughts, intentions and conversational meaning in everyday exchanges. Track-based spatial statistics were used to perform voxelwise analysis of Fractional Anisotropy (FA) and Mean Diffusivity (MD) of white matter tracts associated with poor social cognitive performance. FA suggested a wide range of tracts were implicated in poor TASIT performance including tracts known to mediate, auditory localisation (planum temporale) communication between nonverbal and verbal processes in general (corpus callosum) and in memory in particular (fornix) as well as tracts and structures associated with semantics and verbal recall (left temporal lobe and hippocampus), multimodal processing and integration (thalamus, external capsule, cerebellum) and with social cognition (orbitofrontal cortex, frontopolar cortex, right temporal lobe). Even when controlling for non-social cognition, the corpus callosum, fornix, bilateral thalamus, right external capsule and right temporal lobe remained significant contributors to social cognitive performance. This study highlights the importance of loss of white matter connectivity in producing complex social information processing deficits after TBI.

Neuropsychological evidence for the crucial role of the right arcuate fasciculus in the face-based mentalizing network: A disconnection analysis

Recent evidence from axonal stimulation mapping studies suggests that at least two white matter connectivities in the right hemisphere may be involved in face-based mentalizing, i.e. the ability to infer complex cognitive and affective states from human faces: the inferior fronto-occipital (IFOF) and the superior longitudinal/arcuate (SLF/AF) fasciculi. However, to date, only a handful of neuropsychological studies have focused on the white matter tracts subserving mentalizing in general, and face-based mentalizing in particular. Therefore, the main goal of this study was to confirm the abovementioned results by applying voxelwise and tractwise lesion-symptom analyses to a set of behavioral data obtained from a large and homogeneous group of neurological participants. More precisely, 122 patients operated on for diffuse low-grade glioma were assessed postoperatively with the well-validated “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” (RME) test. For each patient, the resection cavity and the residual tumor infiltration were mapped separately on the respective postoperative structural MRI. Behavioral data, previously controlled for sociodemographic factors, were then submitted to a standard voxel-based and to a less conservative, region-of-interest (ROI)-based, lesion-deficit analyses. Results were invariably the same: no anatomo-functional relationships were pinpointed by these investigations, making thus impossible the cortical topological localization of mentalizing deficits. In a second time, two kinds of tractwise lesion-symptom analyses based on the damaged volume and the disconnection probabilities of the white matter tracts, were performed. All results were corrected with the Bonferroni correction. Converging and strong evidence was found that resection-related disconnection of the right AF is especially deleterious for face-based mentalizing. More anecdotally, we identified the involvement of certain ventral tracts, especially the IFOF and the uncinate fasciculus (UF). Taken as a whole, the reported findings confirm the critical role of the right AF in mentalizing abilities. From a more clinical standpoint, they highlight the necessity to perform an intraoperative map of this connectivity during awake surgery in order to avoid long-lasting social cognition disorders.

BICAMS in the Argentine population: Relationship with clinical and sociodemographic variables

ABSTRACTThe Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS) was developed to provide valid assessment of cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS). The relationship between clinical and social variables and cognitive disorders has been extensively studied, but primarily in developed countries with a focus on other cognitive measures or batteries. The objectives of this study were to analyze the relationship between the BICAMS data and key clinical and sociodemographic variables in the Argentine MS population. A total of 50 MS patients were administered the Argentinean BICAMS Battery, comprised of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), the California Verbal Learning Test I (CVLT I), and the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test Revised (BVMTR). Disease progression, fatigue, depression, self-reported and informant report cognitive status, and employment status were assessed. Disease progression and employment status were most strongly associated with overall BICAMS performance (η2 effect size values ranging from .302 to .624, all comparisons statistically significant). Informant rating of patient cognition, age, depression, disease duration, fatigue, and work hours were significantly associated as well. Gender, years of education, and patient-reported cognitive status were nonpredictive. A similar pattern was seen at the individual test level, with more variables related to the SDMT and CVLT I than BVMTR. BICAMS is strongly associated with overall disease progression and employment status.

Editorial

Welcome to 2017. This promises to be an exciting year for Brain Impairment. First, we are delighted to announce the Special Issue on Disorders of Social Cognition; Advances in Theory, Assessment and Treatment guest edited by Professor Skye McDonald. The Editors wish to thank Professor McDonald for her hard work in organising an issue of the highest class. This issue will lead off Volume 18.

What's New in the Clinical Management of Disorders of Social Cognition?

Social cognition refers to the ability to use social cues to infer the meaning and intentions behind the behaviour of others in order to respond in a socially adaptive manner. It is increasingly recognised that disorders of social cognition, including problems with emotion perception, theory of mind, conversational inference, morality judgements, decision making and social inhibition, characterise many developmental and psychiatric disorders and are highly relevant to many with acquired brain injuries or diseases, especially the frontotemporal dementias. This review provides an introduction and overview of the papers in this special edition on social cognition and places these in the context of other recent research. In doing so, several current issues in the clinical management of social cognition are delineated. Given that social cognition seems to be a sensitive predictor of psychosocial function, the assessment of social cognition is seen by many clinicians to be important although which profession is responsible is yet to be resolved. Issues in how social cognition are assessed are discussed, including the importance of context to social cognition, its interactive nature and the need to recognise influences such as family upbringing, gender and emotional state on social cognitive performance. There also needs to be development of tests that address all aspects of social cognition, including decision making and inhibition. Finally, this review discusses intervention research. Interventions are especially well developed in relation to schizophrenia, and less well developed in brain injury. These appear to be generally effective although treatments for emotional self-awareness are yet to be developed.

社会的認知の自発性と自閉症スペクトラム障害(2011年度第1回フォーラム 社会的認知およびその発達と障害)

社会的認知の自発性と自閉症スペクトラム障害(2011年度第1回フォーラム 社会的認知およびその発達と障害)

Acute oxytocin improves memory and gaze following in male but not female nursery-reared infant macaques

Exogenous oxytocin administration is widely reported to improve social cognition in human and nonhuman primate adults. Risk factors of impaired social cognition, however, emerge in infancy. Early interventions-when plasticity is greatest-are critical to reverse negative outcomes. We tested the hypothesis that oxytocin may exert similar positive effects on infant social cognition, as in adults. To test this idea, we assessed the effectiveness of acute, aerosolized oxytocin on two foundational social cognitive skills: working memory (i.e., ability to briefly hold and process information) and social gaze (i.e., tracking the direction of others' gaze) in 1-month-old nursery-reared macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta). We did not predict sex differences, but we included sex as a factor in our analyses to test whether our effects would be generalizable across both males and females. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled design, we found that females were more socially skilled at baseline compared to males, and that oxytocin improved working memory and gaze following, but only in males. These sex differences, while unexpected, may be due to interactions with gonadal steroids and may be relevant to sexually dimorphic disorders of social cognition, such as male-biased autism spectrum disorder, for which oxytocin has been proposed as a potential treatment. In sum, we report the first evidence that oxytocin may influence primate infant cognitive abilities. Moreover, these behavioral effects appear sexually dimorphic, highlighting the importance of considering sex differences. Oxytocin effects observed in one sex may not be generalizable to the other sex.

Troubles de la cognition sociale dans le syndrome de Klinefelter : un trait phénotypique ?

IntroductionThe Klinefelter syndrome (KS) is a genetic condition characterized by an X supernumerary sex chromosome in males. The syndrome is frequently associated with cognitive impairment. Indeed, the different areas of the executive sphere can be affected such as inhibition, cognitive flexibility but also attentional and visual-spatial domain. Social cognition disorders, predominantly on emotional recognition processes, have also been documented. In addition, the syndrome may be associated with psychiatric symptoms. Material and methodOur study aims to characterize of the various components of social cognition in the SK: facial emotional recognition, theory of mind and attributional style. For this two groups (SK group versus control group) of participants (n=16) matched for age and sociocultural level were recruited. Participants with intellectual disabilities, psychiatric or neurological disorders were excluded. Three social cognition tests were available: the TREF, the MASC, the AIHQ. Neurocognitive functions were assessed by the fNart, the subtest “logical memory” of the MEM-III, the subtests of the two VOSP battery, the d2, the TMT and the Stroop test. ResultsThe SK group had specific social cognition disorders in comparison to the control group. Two emotions in particular were less well recognized: fear and contempt. In addition, the SK group had significantly lower results in theory of mind. Regarding the hostile attribution bias, no significant difference was found. Finally, the results showed correlations between specific attentional disorders and facial emotional recognition. Discussion–conclusionOur study emphasizes social cognition disorders in SK. These disorders could be considered as a phenotypic trait in the syndrome. The interest of better characterizing the cognitive phenotype of genetic disorders that can affect the neurodevelopment is to offer specific cognitive remediation strategies.