Impaired facial emotion recognition in relation to social behaviours in de novo Parkinson's disease

Facial emotion recognition (FER) is a crucial component of social cognition and is essential in social-interpersonal behaviour regulation. Although FER impairment is well-established in advanced PD, data about FER at the time of diagnosis and its relationship with social behavioural problems in daily life are lacking. The aim was to examine FER at the time of PD diagnosis compared to a matched healthy control (HC) group and to associate FER with indices of social behavioural problems. In total, 142 de novo, treatment-naïve PD patients and 142 HC were included. FER was assessed by the Ekman 60 faces test (EFT). Behavioural problems in PD patients were assessed using the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX-self and DEX-proxy) and the Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES-self). PD patients had significantly lower EFT-total scores (p = .001) compared to HC, with worse recognition of Disgust (p = .001) and Sadness (p = .016). Correlational analyses yielded significant correlations between AES-self and both EFT-total (r_s = .28) and Fear (r_s = .22). Significant negative correlations were found between DEX-proxy and both EFT-total (r_s = −.28) and Anger (r_s = −.26). Analyses of DEX-subscales showed that proxy ratings were significantly higher than patient-ratings for the Social Conventions subscale (p = .047). This DEX-proxy subscale had the strongest correlation with EFT-total (r_s = −.29). Results show that de novo PD patients already show impaired FER compared to HC. In addition, lower FER is linked to self-reported apathy and proxy-reported social-behavioural problems, especially concerning social conventions. These findings validate the importance of the inclusion of social cognition measures in the neuropsychological assessment even in early PD.