Department of Psychiatry, Bugok National Hospital, Gyeongsang nam-do, Republic of Korea.
Psychiatry Res. 2011 Mar 30;186(1):80-4. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2010.06.027. Epub 2011 Feb 12.
Chronic use of methamphetamine is related to behavioral disturbances including depression, aggressive behavior, and social isolation. These alterations of social behavior may be attributable to impairments in social cognition. However, few studies have evaluated social cognition in methamphetamine (MA) abusers. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether MA abusers exhibit social cognition deficits in terms of facial emotion recognition and theory of mind (ToM). We also assessed cognitive flexibility by using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) to evaluate the impact of this function on social cognition. Twenty-eight MA abusers and twenty-seven healthy subjects enrolled in this study. All participants performed the Facial Emotion Recognition Task and advanced ToM tasks such as the Eye Test and Hinting Task. The Korean Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised and computerized versions of the WCST were also administrated. The performances of MA abusers on the Facial Emotion Recognition Task and Eyes Test were lower than those of healthy subjects. In the WCST, MA abusers completed significantly fewer categories and made more total and perseverative errors than healthy subjects did. In addition, impairments in cognitive flexibility are correlated with impairments in facial emotion recognition and ToM within MA abusers. These findings lend further support to the assertion that the capacity to identify emotions from facial expression and infer mental state of others is impaired in MA abusers. Therefore, treatment and rehabilitation for MA abusers must consider role of social cognition and include relearning social interactions and behaviors.
慢性使用甲基苯丙胺与行为障碍有关，包括抑郁、攻击行为和社交隔离。这些社交行为的改变可能归因于社会认知的损害。然而，很少有研究评估过甲基苯丙胺（MA）滥用者的社会认知。因此，本研究的目的是探讨 MA 滥用者是否在面部情绪识别和心理理论（ToM）方面存在社会认知缺陷。我们还使用威斯康星卡片分类测试（WCST）评估认知灵活性，以评估该功能对社会认知的影响。本研究纳入了 28 名 MA 滥用者和 27 名健康受试者。所有参与者都完成了面部情绪识别任务和高级 ToM 任务，如眼测试和暗示任务。还进行了韩国韦氏成人智力量表修订版和 WCST 的计算机版本测试。MA 滥用者在面部情绪识别任务和眼测试中的表现低于健康受试者。在 WCST 中，MA 滥用者完成的分类明显较少，总错误和持续错误更多。此外，认知灵活性的损伤与 MA 滥用者的面部情绪识别和 ToM 损伤相关。这些发现进一步支持了这样的观点，即从面部表情识别情绪和推断他人心理状态的能力在 MA 滥用者中受损。因此，对 MA 滥用者的治疗和康复必须考虑社会认知的作用，并包括重新学习社交互动和行为。
