TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond disgust
T2 - Impaired recognition of negative emotions prior to diagnosis in Huntington's disease
AU - Johnson, Shannon A.
AU - Stout, Julie C.
AU - Solomon, Andrea C.
AU - Langbehn, Douglas R.
AU - Aylward, Elizabeth H.
AU - Cruce, Christina B.
AU - Ross, Christopher A.
AU - Nance, Martha
AU - Kayson, Elise
AU - Julian-Baros, Elaine
AU - Hayden, Michael R.
AU - Kieburtz, Karl
AU - Guttman, Mark
AU - Oakes, David
AU - Shoulson, Ira
AU - Beglinger, Leigh
AU - Duff, Kevin
AU - Penziner, Elizabeth
AU - Paulsen, Jane S.
N1 - Funding Information:
Our thanks to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke grant # NS40068 and the High Q Foundation for the project entitled, Neurobiological Predictors of Huntington’s Disease (Predict-HD). Additional funding was provided by National Institutes of Mental Health grant # 01579, Roy J. Carver Trust Medicine Research Initiative, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute grants to Jane S. Paulsen, the Huntington’s Disease Society of America, the Huntington’s Society of Canada, and Hereditary Disease Foundation grants to the Huntington Study Group. Our thanks to the National Research Roster for Huntington Disease Patients and Families (HD Roster) (NIH: N01 NS 3 2357) located at Indiana University School of Medicine. The HD Roster has been funded by the NIH since 1979 and serves to recruit patients and families interested in participating in HD research.
PY - 2007/7
Y1 - 2007/7
N2 - Previous studies of emotion recognition suggest that detection of disgust relies on processing within the basal ganglia and insula. Research involving individuals with symptomatic and pre-diagnostic Huntington's disease (HD), a disease with known basal ganglia atrophy, has generally indicated a relative impairment in recognizing disgust. However, some data have suggested that recognition of other emotions (particularly fear and anger) may also be affected in HD, and a recent study found fear recognition deficits in the absence of other emotion-recognition impairments, including disgust. To further examine emotion recognition in HD, we administered a computerized facial emotion recognition task to 475 individuals with the HD CAG expansion and 57 individuals without. Logistic regression was used to examine associations of emotion recognition performance with estimated proximity to clinical diagnosis (based on CAG repeat length and current age) and striatal volumes. Recognition of anger, disgust, fear, sadness and surprise (but not happiness) was associated with estimated years to clinical diagnosis; performance was unrelated to striatal volumes. Compared to a CAG-normal control group, the CAG-expanded group demonstrated significantly less accurate recognition of all negative emotions (anger, disgust, fear, sadness). Additionally, participants with more pronounced motor signs of HD were significantly less accurate at recognizing negative emotions than were individuals with fewer motor signs. Findings indicate that recognition of all negative emotions declines early in the disease process, and poorer performance is associated with closer proximity to clinical diagnosis. In contrast to previous results, we found no evidence of relative impairments in recognizing disgust or fear, and no evidence to support a link between the striatum and disgust recognition.
AB - Previous studies of emotion recognition suggest that detection of disgust relies on processing within the basal ganglia and insula. Research involving individuals with symptomatic and pre-diagnostic Huntington's disease (HD), a disease with known basal ganglia atrophy, has generally indicated a relative impairment in recognizing disgust. However, some data have suggested that recognition of other emotions (particularly fear and anger) may also be affected in HD, and a recent study found fear recognition deficits in the absence of other emotion-recognition impairments, including disgust. To further examine emotion recognition in HD, we administered a computerized facial emotion recognition task to 475 individuals with the HD CAG expansion and 57 individuals without. Logistic regression was used to examine associations of emotion recognition performance with estimated proximity to clinical diagnosis (based on CAG repeat length and current age) and striatal volumes. Recognition of anger, disgust, fear, sadness and surprise (but not happiness) was associated with estimated years to clinical diagnosis; performance was unrelated to striatal volumes. Compared to a CAG-normal control group, the CAG-expanded group demonstrated significantly less accurate recognition of all negative emotions (anger, disgust, fear, sadness). Additionally, participants with more pronounced motor signs of HD were significantly less accurate at recognizing negative emotions than were individuals with fewer motor signs. Findings indicate that recognition of all negative emotions declines early in the disease process, and poorer performance is associated with closer proximity to clinical diagnosis. In contrast to previous results, we found no evidence of relative impairments in recognizing disgust or fear, and no evidence to support a link between the striatum and disgust recognition.
KW - Disgust
KW - Emotion recognition
KW - Predict-HD
KW - Presymptomatic Huntington's disease
KW - Striatum
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U2 - 10.1093/brain/awm107
DO - 10.1093/brain/awm107
M3 - Article
C2 - 17584778
AN - SCOPUS:34447620858
SN - 0006-8950
VL - 130
SP - 1732
EP - 1744
JO - Brain
JF - Brain
IS - 7
ER -