Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, 6-1-1 Tamagawagakuen, Machida, Tokyo 194-8610, Japan.
Neurosci Res. 2012 Apr;72(4):341-6. doi: 10.1016/j.neures.2012.01.005. Epub 2012 Feb 6.
Patients with myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM 1) exhibit behavioral disorders and distinctive personality traits. We hypothesize that this is due to altered social cognitive function. To investigate the cognitive basis of this impairment in DM 1 patients, we examined their theory of mind (ToM) ability, which is the specific cognitive ability to understand the mental states of others. Nine adult-onset DM 1 patients (4 men and 5 women) performed 2 ToM tasks: "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test and faux pas recognition test. DM 1 patients were found to be impaired in both ToM tests, but had no difficulty with control tasks designed to test visual and lexical comprehension. The present results indicate that social cognitive impairment in patients with adult-onset DM 1 is associated with ToM dysfunction, which could be due to the brain lesions associated with this disease.
1 型肌强直性营养不良（DM1）患者表现出行为障碍和独特的个性特征。我们假设这是由于社会认知功能改变所致。为了研究 DM1 患者这种损害的认知基础，我们检查了他们的心理理论（ToM）能力，这是理解他人心理状态的特定认知能力。9 名成年起病的 DM1 患者（4 名男性和 5 名女性）进行了 2 项 ToM 任务：“眼神阅读心理”测试和失礼识别测试。发现 DM1 患者在这两项 ToM 测试中均受损，但在设计用于测试视觉和词汇理解的对照任务中没有困难。本研究结果表明，成年起病 DM1 患者的社会认知障碍与 ToM 功能障碍有关，这可能是由于该疾病相关的大脑损伤所致。
