Impairments in social cognition in early medicated and unmedicated Parkinsons disease

MARÍA ROCA; TERESA TORRALVA; EZEQUIEL GLEICHGERRCHT; GONZALO GOMEZ AREVALO; ANABEL CHADE; OSCAR GERSHANIK; FACUNDO MANES

Buenos Aires

Congreso; International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders; 2010

The International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (MDS)

Objective: The objective of the present study was to assess social cognition in patients with early Parkinson´s Disease (PD). Background: Previous research has shown social interaction problems in patients with Parkinsons disease. Originally based on social psychology, social cognition intends to explore the way in which the actual or implied presence of others influences thoughts, feelings, and behavior. More specifically, Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to infer others? mental states, including intentions and feelings, and is considered to be a critical part of social cognition. Studies investigating ToM in individuals with PD have yielded equivocal findings. A possible reason for this variability may lie in several methodological issues such as overlooking of potentially different profiles within the PD population, and the disregard of important clinical variables such as disease severity and dopaminergic medication intake. Methods: In the present study, we compared medicated (n = 16) and unmedicated (n = 20) patients with early PD and a control group of healthy subjects (n = 38). Patients were assessed with two ToM tasks designed to differentially detect subtle deficits in the affective and cognitive aspects of ToM, as well as with a battery of classical executive tests. Results: Our results are the first to indicate that ToM is affected in the early stages of PD. Such deficits seem to be related to the cognitive aspects of this domain, and were not related with performance on executive functioning nor depression. Conclusions: It is suggested that the frontostriatal circuits affected in PD are involved in social behavior.