Multimodal emotion perception in young and elderly patients with multiple sclerosis

Maxime Montembeault; Estefania Brando; Kim Charest; Alexandra Tremblay; Élaine Roger; Pierre Duquette; Isabelle Rouleau

doi:10.1016/j.msard.2021.103478

Multimodal emotion perception in young and elderly patients with multiple sclerosis

Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2022 Feb:58:103478. doi: 10.1016/j.msard.2021.103478. Epub 2022 Jan 5.

Authors

Maxime Montembeault¹, Estefania Brando², Kim Charest², Alexandra Tremblay², Élaine Roger³, Pierre Duquette³, Isabelle Rouleau⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, University of California in San Francisco, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, Suite 190, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
² Département de Psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP 8888, succ. Centre-ville, Montreal QC H3C 3P8, Canada.
³ Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, 900 Rue Saint-Denis, Montréal, QC H2X 3H8, Canada.
⁴ Département de Psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP 8888, succ. Centre-ville, Montreal QC H3C 3P8, Canada; Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, 900 Rue Saint-Denis, Montréal, QC H2X 3H8, Canada. Electronic address: rouleau.isabelle@uqam.ca.

PMID: 35033840
DOI: 10.1016/j.msard.2021.103478

Abstract

Background: Studies suggest that emotion recognition and empathy are impaired in patients with MS (pwMS). Nonetheless, most studies are restricted to young samples, to facial emotion recognition and to self-report assessments of empathy. The aims of this study are to determine the impact of MS and age on multimodal emotion recognition (facial emotions and vocal emotional bursts) and on socioemotional sensitivity (as reported by the participants and their informants). We also aim to investigate the associations between emotion recognition, socioemotional sensitivity, and cognitive measures.

Methods: We recruited 13 young healthy controls (HC), 14 young pwMS, 14 elderly HC and 15 elderly pwMS. They underwent a short neuropsychological battery, an experimental emotion recognition task including facial emotions and vocal emotional bursts. Both participants and their study informants completed the Revised-Self Monitoring Scale (RSMS) to assess the participant's socioemotional sensitivity.

Results: There was a significant effect of age and group on recognition of both facial emotions and emotional vocal bursts, HC performing significantly better than pwMS, and young participants performing better than elderly participants (no interaction effect). The same effects were observed on self-reported socioemotional sensitivity. However, lower socioemotional sensitivity in pwMS was not reported by the informants. Finally, multimodal emotion recognition did not correlate with socioemotional sensitivity, but it correlated with global cognitive severity.

Conclusion: PwMS present with multimodal emotion perception deficits. Our results extend previous findings of decreased emotion perception and empathy to a group of elderly pwMS, in which advancing age does not accentuate these deficits. However, the decreased socioemotional sensitivity reported by pwMS does not appear to be observed by their relatives, nor to correlate with their emotion perception impairments. Future studies should investigate the real-life impacts of emotion perception deficits in pwMS.

Keywords: Aging; Emotion; Empathy; Multiple sclerosis; Neuropsychology; Social cognition.

MeSH terms

Aged
Emotions
Empathy
Facial Expression
Facial Recognition*
Humans
Multiple Sclerosis* / psychology
Neuropsychological Tests