Neurology Unit, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Department of Neurology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Eur J Neurol. 2018 Jan;25(1):90-96. doi: 10.1111/ene.13457. Epub 2017 Oct 24.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) has been associated with deficits in social cognition. However, little is known about which domains of social cognition are predominantly affected and what other factors are associated with it. The aim was (i) to characterize social cognition deficit in a group of MS outpatients and (ii) to relate impairment in social cognition to overall cognitive status, depression and fatigue.
Thirty-five MS patients (mean disease duration 12.9 years, median Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) 3 and 34 healthy controls (HCs) were examined using the German version of the Geneva Social Cognition Scale to measure different domains of social cognition. Standard neuropsychological testing was applied to all patients and to 20 HCs. Patient-reported outcomes included questionnaires for fatigue, depression, anxiety and executive-behavioural disturbances.
The mean social cognition raw score was lower in the MS patients compared to the HCs (86.5 ± 8.7 vs. 91.2 ± 5.9, P = 0.005; d = 0.6) and did not correlate with EDSS or disease duration. The difference was driven by facial affect recognition and the understanding of complex social situations (14% and 23% of patients respectively under the cut-off). The impairment in these two tasks did not correlate with general cognitive performance or depression but with fatigue.
The impairment in our group was restricted to high order and affective social cognition tasks and independent of general cognitive performance, EDSS, disease duration and depression. Fatigue correlated with social cognition performance, which might be due to common underlying neuronal networks.
多发性硬化症（MS）与社会认知缺陷有关。然而，目前尚不清楚哪些社会认知领域受到的影响最大，以及还有哪些其他因素与之相关。本研究的目的是：（i）描述一组 MS 门诊患者的社会认知缺陷；（ii）将社会认知障碍与整体认知状态、抑郁和疲劳相关联。
对 35 名 MS 患者（平均病程 12.9 年，中位数扩展残疾状态量表（EDSS）为 3 分）和 34 名健康对照者（HCs）进行了德国版日内瓦社会认知量表（Geneva Social Cognition Scale）的测试，以评估不同的社会认知领域。对所有患者和 20 名 HCs 进行了标准神经心理学测试。患者报告的结果包括疲劳、抑郁、焦虑和执行行为障碍的问卷。
与 HCs 相比，MS 患者的社会认知原始分数较低（86.5 ± 8.7 与 91.2 ± 5.9，P = 0.005；d = 0.6），且与 EDSS 或病程无关。这种差异是由面部情感识别和复杂社会情境理解能力下降导致的（分别有 14%和 23%的患者低于临界值）。这两项任务的损伤与一般认知表现或抑郁无关，但与疲劳有关。
我们研究组的损伤仅限于高级和情感社会认知任务，且与一般认知表现、EDSS、病程和抑郁无关。疲劳与社会认知表现相关，这可能是由于共同的潜在神经元网络所致。
