Andrews Sophie C, Staios Mathew, Howe Jim, Reardon Katrina, Fisher Fiona
Neuropsychology Department, Calvary Health Care Bethlehem.
School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University.
Neuropsychology. 2017 Mar;31(3):304-310. doi: 10.1037/neu0000323. Epub 2017 Jan 5.
Emotion processing abilities might be reduced in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Previous studies of emotion processing in ALS have inconsistent results, and are limited by variations in task difficulty, modalities examined, and participants' cognitive status. The current study used a battery of emotion processing tasks at differing levels of difficulty and across different modalities (facial affect and voice prosody) to assess the extent of emotion processing deficits in nondemented ALS.
33 ALS participants with intact basic cognition and 22 healthy controls completed the abbreviated Comprehensive Affect Testing System (CATS), which assesses simple and complex facial affect recognition, affective prosody recognition, cross-modal face-prosody integration, and semantic comprehension of affect. Participants also completed measures of executive function, mood, and functional impairment.
ALS participants showed impairments on complex facial affect recognition, affective prosody recognition, and cross-modal integration. In contrast, simple facial affect recognition and semantic comprehension of affect were intact. ALS participants did not have significant mood symptoms, and neither mood nor functional impairment was related to emotion processing. Performance on the cross-modal composite was related to executive function, however, this relationship was not apparent for facial or prosody recognition within a single modality.
These results indicate that people living with ALS without dementia often have subtle difficulties with recognizing emotions in both faces and voices, even in the context of intact basic cognition. Clinicians should be aware of the potential for these emotion processing difficulties to be present in ALS and to affect interpersonal behavior and quality of life. (PsycINFO Database Record
肌萎缩侧索硬化症（ALS）患者的情绪处理能力可能会下降。先前关于ALS患者情绪处理的研究结果不一致，且受任务难度、所考察的模态以及参与者认知状态差异的限制。本研究使用了一系列难度不同且涵盖不同模态（面部表情和语音韵律）的情绪处理任务，以评估非痴呆型ALS患者情绪处理缺陷的程度。
33名基本认知功能完好的ALS参与者和22名健康对照者完成了简化版综合情感测试系统（CATS），该系统评估简单和复杂的面部表情识别、情感韵律识别、跨模态面部 - 韵律整合以及情感语义理解。参与者还完成了执行功能、情绪和功能障碍的测量。
ALS参与者在复杂面部表情识别、情感韵律识别和跨模态整合方面存在缺陷。相比之下，简单面部表情识别和情感语义理解功能完好。ALS参与者没有明显情绪症状，情绪和功能障碍均与情绪处理无关。然而，跨模态综合任务的表现与执行功能有关，但在单一模态内的面部或韵律识别方面这种关系并不明显。
这些结果表明，非痴呆型ALS患者即使在基本认知功能完好的情况下，在识别面部和语音中的情绪方面也常常存在细微困难。临床医生应意识到ALS患者可能存在这些情绪处理困难，并可能影响人际行为和生活质量。（PsycINFO数据库记录
