Disgust-specific Impairment of Facial Emotion Recognition in Parkinson's Disease Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Ke-Wei Chiang; Chun-Hsiang Tan; Wei-Pin Hong; Rwei-Ling Yu

doi:10.1093/scan/nsae073

Disgust-specific Impairment of Facial Emotion Recognition in Parkinson's Disease Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2024 Oct 17:nsae073. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae073. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Ke-Wei Chiang^{1

2}, Chun-Hsiang Tan^{3

4}, Wei-Pin Hong⁵, Rwei-Ling Yu^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Behavioral Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
² Department of Psychiatry, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung 404327, Taiwan.
³ Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
⁴ Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Neurology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
⁶ Office of Strategic Planning, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.

PMID: 39417289
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsae073

Abstract

This study investigated the association between cognitive function and facial emotion recognition (FER) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI). We enrolled 126 participants from Taiwan, including 63 patients with idiopathic PD and 63 matched healthy controls. The PD group was divided into two groups: those with normal cognitive function (PD-NC) and those with MCI (PD-MCI). Participants underwent a modality emotion recognition test and comprehensive cognitive assessment. Our findings reveal that patients with PD-MCI exhibit significantly impaired FER, especially in recognizing "disgust," compared with patients with PD-NC and healthy adults (p = .001). This deficit correlates with executive function, attention, memory, and visuospatial abilities. Attention mediates the relationship between executive function and "disgust" FER. The findings highlight how patients with PD-MCI are specifically challenged when recognizing "disgust" and suggest that cognitive training focusing on cognitive flexibility and attention may improve their FER abilities. This study contributes to our understanding of the nuanced relationship between cognitive dysfunction and FER in patients with PD-MCI, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions.

Keywords: Parkinson’s diseaseIntroduction; cognitive function; cognitive impairment; disgust facial emotion; emotion recognition.

Abstract

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