Emotion Recognition Deficits in the Differential Diagnosis of Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Cognitive Marker for the Limbic-Predominant Phenotype. (22nd February 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dodich, Alessandra; Crespi, Chiara; Santi, Gaia Chiara; Marcone, Alessandra; Iannaccone, Sandro; Perani, Daniela; Cappa, Stefano F.; Cerami, Chiara
• Is Part Of: Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. Volume 28:Number 2(2022)
• Page Start: 203
• Page End: 209
• Publication Date: 2022-02-22
• Subjects: Mild cognitive impairment -- Ekman 60 Faces test -- cognitive marker -- differential diagnosis -- medial temporal lobe dysfunction -- Alzheimer's disease; Neuropsychology -- Periodicals; 616.8
• DOI: 10.1017/S1355617721000254
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1355-6177

Abstract

Abstract: Objective: Late-onset amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) with long disease course and slow progression has been recently recognized as a possible phenotypical expression of a limbic-predominant neurodegenerative disorder. Basic emotion recognition ability crucially depending on temporo-limbic integrity is supposed to be impaired in this group of MCI subjects presenting a selective vulnerability of medio-temporal and limbic regions. However, no study specifically investigated this issue. Methods: Hereby, we enrolled 30 aMCI with a biomarker-based diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (i.e., aMCI-AD, n = 16) or a biomarker evidence of selective medio-temporal and limbic degeneration (aMCI-mTLD, n = 14). Ekman-60 Faces Test (Ek-60F) was administered to each subject, comparing the performance with that of 20 healthy controls (HCs). Results: aMCI-mTLD subjects showed significantly lower Ek-60F global scores compared to HC (p = 0.001), whose performance was comparable to aMCI-AD. Fear (p = 0.02), surprise (p = 0.005), and anger (p = 0.01) recognition deficits characterized the aMCI-mTLD performance. Fear recognition scores were significantly lower in aMCI-mTLD compared to aMCI-AD (p = 0.04), while no differences were found in other emotions. Conclusions: Impaired social cognition, suggested by defective performance in emotion recognition tasks, may be a useful cognitive marker to detect limbic-predominant aMCI subjects among the heterogeneous aMCI population.