Facial Expression Recognition and Medication effects in Huntington’s disease
Izelle
Labuschagne1*,
Rebecca
Jones2,
Jenny
Callaghan3,
Daisy
Whitehead4,
Eve
Dumas5,
Miranda
J.
Say4,
Ellen
P.
Hart5,
Damian
Justo6,
Allison
Coleman7,
Rachelle
Dar Santos7,
Chris
Frost2,
David
I.
Craufurd3,
Sarah
J.
Tabrizi4 and
Julie
C.
Stout1
-
1
Monash University, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Australia
-
2
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Department of Medical Statistics, United Kingdom
-
3
The University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre and Central Manchester University Hospital NHS Foundation, United Kingdom
-
4
University College London, Institute of Neurology, United Kingdom
-
5
Leiden University Medical Centre, Department of Neurology, Netherlands
-
6
Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France
-
7
University of British Columbia,, Department of Medical Genetics, Canada
Despite the evidence, there is little agreement about the exact nature and extent of the facial expression recognition deficits across the Huntington’s disease (HD) spectrum. Furthermore, little is known about the effects of medications on emotion recognition abilities. Using data from the Track-HD study, our aims were two-fold. Firstly, we examined facial expression recognition performance in participants comprising of premanifest HD (preHD) and early HD patients, and controls. Secondly, and within the early HD sample, we tested for differences on facial expression recognition performance between those ‘on’ vs. ‘off’ selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or neuroleptic medications. Participants were presented with six basic emotional expressions (happy, sad, angry, fear, surprise, disgust) and neutral expressions which were presented one at a time on the screen in a randomised order. Statistical analyses showed that the preHD groups were significantly impaired on recognising fearful, angry and surprised faces compared to controls. The early HD groups were significantly impaired across all facial expressions. Furthermore, in early HD, SSRI use was associated with better emotion recognition, significantly for disgusted and sad facial expressions, whereas neuroleptic use was associated with worse emotion recognition, significantly for fearful, happy, sad and combined negative facial expressions. Our findings suggest that deficits in recognising facial expressions exist across the HD spectrum and that medications commonly prescribe to HD have shown to affect the recognition of facial expressions. These findings have important implications for the social and emotional symptoms and medications usage associated with HD.
Acknowledgements
TRACK-HD is supported by the CHDI/High Q Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding treatments for Huntington’s disease. Some of this work was undertaken at UCLH/UCL and the University of Manchester, which received support from the Department of Health’s NIHR Biomedical Research Centres. The authors offer their gratitude to the volunteers who participated and to their carers and companions who helped make their participation possible.
Keywords:
Facial Expression,
neuroleptics,
Serotonin,
Neurodegenerative Diseases,
Huntington Disease,
Emotions
Conference:
ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 29 Nov - 2 Dec, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Emotion and Social
Citation:
Labuschagne
I,
Jones
R,
Callaghan
J,
Whitehead
D,
Dumas
E,
Say
MJ,
Hart
EP,
Justo
D,
Coleman
A,
Dar Santos
R,
Frost
C,
Craufurd
DI,
Tabrizi
SJ and
Stout
JC
(2012). Facial Expression Recognition and Medication effects in Huntington’s disease.
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.208.00061
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Received:
25 Oct 2012;
Published Online:
07 Nov 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Izelle Labuschagne, Monash University, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia, izelle.labuschagne@acu.edu.au