Understanding basic and social emotions in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia
IntroductionRecent developments in the field of social cognition have led to a renewed interest in basic and social emotion recognition in early stages of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and FrontoTemporal Dementia (FTD). Despite the growing attention to this issue, only few studies have attempted to...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-02-01
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1535722/full |
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| author | Carlotta Sola Vanessa Zanelli Maria Angela Molinari Claudia Casadio Francesco Ricci Omar Carpentiero Manuela Tondelli Fausta Lui Paolo Frigio Nichelli Francesca Benuzzi |
| author_facet | Carlotta Sola Vanessa Zanelli Maria Angela Molinari Claudia Casadio Francesco Ricci Omar Carpentiero Manuela Tondelli Fausta Lui Paolo Frigio Nichelli Francesca Benuzzi |
| author_sort | Carlotta Sola |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | IntroductionRecent developments in the field of social cognition have led to a renewed interest in basic and social emotion recognition in early stages of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and FrontoTemporal Dementia (FTD). Despite the growing attention to this issue, only few studies have attempted to investigate emotion recognition using both visual and vocal stimuli. In addition, recent studies have presented conflicting findings regarding the extent of impairment in patients in the early stages of these diseases. The present study aims to investigate emotion understanding (both basic and social emotions), using different tasks with visual and auditory stimuli, to identify supramodal deficits in AD and FTD to provide a reliable tool to better outline their behavioral and emotional profile and useful instruments for their management.MethodsEighteen patients with AD and 15 patients with FTD were included in the study. Healthy control (HCs) subjects were recruited to obtain normative data for basic emotion recognition tests and social emotion recognition tasks. To evaluate basic emotion recognition, the Facial Emotion Recognition Battery (FERB) and the Emotional Prosody Recognition Battery (EPRB) were administered. To evaluate social emotion recognition, the Faux Pas (FP), Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME), and Reading the Mind in the Voice (RMV) tests were employed.ResultsFTD patients performed significantly worse than HCs in most of the subtests of the basic emotion recognition batteries, where, instead, AD patients were significantly impaired only when required to match emotional facial expression in different individuals (subtask of the FERB). Moreover, FTD patients scored significantly lower in RME and RMV tests compared both to AD patients and to HCs. In addition, ADs were selectively impaired in RMV as respect to HCs.DiscussionFTD patients showed deficits in emotion recognition, affecting both basic and social emotions, whether conveyed through facial expressions or prosody. This result may explain the well-known social behavioral difficulties observed in FTD patients from the early stages of the disease. The fewer and specific deficits in AD patients with comparable MMSE scores may be attributed to the mild degree of impairment, as these deficits may appear later in the progression of AD. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-c915efbb1d4c4515adaa37e6d666ce50 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
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| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj-art-c915efbb1d4c4515adaa37e6d666ce502025-02-07T13:05:02ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782025-02-011610.3389/fpsyg.2025.15357221535722Understanding basic and social emotions in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementiaCarlotta Sola0Vanessa Zanelli1Maria Angela Molinari2Claudia Casadio3Francesco Ricci4Omar Carpentiero5Manuela Tondelli6Fausta Lui7Paolo Frigio Nichelli8Francesca Benuzzi9Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Unit, AUSL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, ItalyDepartment of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, ItalyAzienda Ospedaliero Universitaria (AOU) of Modena, Modena, ItalyDepartment of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, ItalyDepartment of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, ItalyDepartment of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, ItalyDepartment of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, ItalyDepartment of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, ItalyDepartment of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, ItalyDepartment of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, ItalyIntroductionRecent developments in the field of social cognition have led to a renewed interest in basic and social emotion recognition in early stages of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and FrontoTemporal Dementia (FTD). Despite the growing attention to this issue, only few studies have attempted to investigate emotion recognition using both visual and vocal stimuli. In addition, recent studies have presented conflicting findings regarding the extent of impairment in patients in the early stages of these diseases. The present study aims to investigate emotion understanding (both basic and social emotions), using different tasks with visual and auditory stimuli, to identify supramodal deficits in AD and FTD to provide a reliable tool to better outline their behavioral and emotional profile and useful instruments for their management.MethodsEighteen patients with AD and 15 patients with FTD were included in the study. Healthy control (HCs) subjects were recruited to obtain normative data for basic emotion recognition tests and social emotion recognition tasks. To evaluate basic emotion recognition, the Facial Emotion Recognition Battery (FERB) and the Emotional Prosody Recognition Battery (EPRB) were administered. To evaluate social emotion recognition, the Faux Pas (FP), Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME), and Reading the Mind in the Voice (RMV) tests were employed.ResultsFTD patients performed significantly worse than HCs in most of the subtests of the basic emotion recognition batteries, where, instead, AD patients were significantly impaired only when required to match emotional facial expression in different individuals (subtask of the FERB). Moreover, FTD patients scored significantly lower in RME and RMV tests compared both to AD patients and to HCs. In addition, ADs were selectively impaired in RMV as respect to HCs.DiscussionFTD patients showed deficits in emotion recognition, affecting both basic and social emotions, whether conveyed through facial expressions or prosody. This result may explain the well-known social behavioral difficulties observed in FTD patients from the early stages of the disease. The fewer and specific deficits in AD patients with comparable MMSE scores may be attributed to the mild degree of impairment, as these deficits may appear later in the progression of AD.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1535722/fullTheory of Mindemotion recognitionemotional prosodyAlzheimer's diseasefrontotemporal dementia |
| spellingShingle | Carlotta Sola Vanessa Zanelli Maria Angela Molinari Claudia Casadio Francesco Ricci Omar Carpentiero Manuela Tondelli Fausta Lui Paolo Frigio Nichelli Francesca Benuzzi Understanding basic and social emotions in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia Frontiers in Psychology Theory of Mind emotion recognition emotional prosody Alzheimer's disease frontotemporal dementia |
| title | Understanding basic and social emotions in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia |
| title_full | Understanding basic and social emotions in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia |
| title_fullStr | Understanding basic and social emotions in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Understanding basic and social emotions in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia |
| title_short | Understanding basic and social emotions in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia |
| title_sort | understanding basic and social emotions in alzheimer s disease and frontotemporal dementia |
| topic | Theory of Mind emotion recognition emotional prosody Alzheimer's disease frontotemporal dementia |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1535722/full |
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