Impairments In Social Cognition In Multiple Sclerosis

MARÍA GONZALEZ TOLEDO; NOELIA PONTELLO; CATALINA RAIMONDI; EZEQUIEL GLEICHGERRCHT; MARÍA ROCA; VLADIMIRO SINAY; FACUNDO MANES

Honolulu

Encuentro; 63rd AAN 2011 Annual Meeting; 2011

American Academy of Neurology

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impairment of Theory of mind (ToM) in early Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients (relapsing-remitting) by discriminating the two aspects of this domain: cognitive and affective. BACKGROUND: ToM is the ability to infer thoughts, feelings and emotions of others, and it constitutes a fundamental skill for daily performance in society. This domain can be further divided in two spheres: cognitive ToM, the ability to infer thoughts, and affective ToM, the ability to infer feelings. There is controversial evidence regarding the impairment of ToM in MS, as previous studies have not found significant differences in ToM in MS patients (Roca et al, 2008), but recent studies have described deficits in this function in the early stages of the disease(Banati et. Al, 2010). None of the previous studies, however, evaluated the difference between the two spheres of ToM in MS patients. DESIGN/METHODS: A group of patients with early relapsing-remitting MS were recruited (n = 12) together with an age-, sex- and education-matched control group (n = 12). All participants were evaluated with a ToM test examining the cognitive and affective spheres (Faux Pas) and with a group of classical executive tests.RESULTS: Early MS patients performed significantly worse than healthy subjects in the cognitive (p = 0.023) but not in the affective component of the ToM test. This deficit was related with executive functioning performance (Wisconsin card Sorting Test, p = 0.024) but not with depression (Beck Depression Inventory, p = 0.231). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study indicating that patients in the early stages of MS of the relapsing-remitting type have difficulties in the cognitive sphere of ToM.