Depression and Facial Identity Recognition Abilities in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis

Overview

Cognitive and emotional disorders are often encountered in multiple sclerosis (MS) cases: depressive and bipolar disorders are twice as frequent as in general population. Cognitive disorders, (particularly attention and dysexecutive disorders), appear in early stages of the disease's evolution, in cases of lightly or moderately disabled patients, with a recent evolution, with a "minor" form of the disease, even in Clinically Isolated Syndromes (CIS). Emotional disturbances are essentially linked to mood disorders of depression-type. Last ten years, emotional processing in multiple sclerosis cases was investigated in various trials, especially regarding the recognition of facial and emotional expressions. These studies reported data, supporting an impairment of the perception of emotion, particularly those with negative valence. The objective of this study is to investigate the link between recognition of facial and emotional expressions and depression in multiple sclerosis cases.

Cognitive and emotional disorders in MS are common. Cognitive impairments, mainly attentional and dysexecutive, appear early in the course of the disease, in patients with mild to moderate disability, a very recent duration of evolution, a so-called "benign" form, and even in clinically isolated syndromes (CIS). Emotional disturbances mainly concern mood disorders, such as depression. Thus, Figved et al (2005) found neuropsychiatric disorders, often combined, in about 80% of their patients at the beginning of the course, with depression (59%), irritability/emotional stability (42%) and apathy (31%) being the most common. More specifically, depressive syndromes and bipolar disorders are found in MS with twice the frequency of the general population. Over the last ten years, the treatment of emotions in MS has been the subject of a few studies. MS has been the subject of several studies, notably concerning the recognition of emotional facial expressions (EFEs). Several studies have reported data in favor of an impairment of the perception of emotion perception of emotion, particularly with negative valence. These difficulties in emotion perception appear to be associated with cognitive difficulties, such as slowed processing speed and dysexecutive difficulties. This deficit appears early in the course of the disease. Moreover, although this deficit has been little studied, such a disorder could lead to difficulties in maintaining social interaction. These patients showed a deficit in learning and recognition of non-verbal social non-verbal social cues and emotional components, independently of the cognitive impairment but more marked in the case of a functional impairment and a longer duration of the disease. Finally, there seems to be specific relationships between problems of of emotion and poor quality of life. Indeed, the levels of certain social and psychological aspects of quality of life in MS have been correlated with these emotion perception scores, highlighting the importance of considering these emotional emotional skills in assessing the impact of MS on the patient. on the patient. The correct analysis of EFEs is a complex mental process process, requiring the functional integrity of a number of cognitive domains (working memory, attention, visual-spatial perception and executive and executive functions). In view of the impact of depression on the analytical capacities of the EFEs, described in numerous studies, the high prevalence of and alexithymia in MS patients allows us to consider these two dimensions as to consider these two dimensions as factors that may influence their identification of EFEs. Concerning alexithymia, one study has already observed its impact on the deficit of recognition of EFEs, but no study has investigated the link between depression and such a deficiency. However, the identification of a link between the recognition abilities of EFEs and these psycho-affective disturbances would allow the development of rehabilitative treatments aiming to limit the impact of the emotional fragility of patients in their daily life and, consequently, to improve their quality of life.