Neuro-e-Motion Research Team, Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Deusto, Av. Universidades, 24, 48007, Bilbao, Spain.
Neurology Service, University Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla, IDIVAL, University of Cantabria, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas-CIBERNED, Santander, Spain.
Cerebellum. 2020 Jun;19(3):392-400. doi: 10.1007/s12311-020-01117-7.
Chiari malformation type I (CM-I) is a neurological disorder in which cerebellar tonsils are herniated through the foramen magnum into the spinal canal. A wide spectrum of cognitive deficits underlying this pathology has been reported, but the literature about social cognition is insufficient. Clinical research has pointed out the cerebellar role in Theory of Mind (ToM), indicating that there are several disorders with cerebellar pathology that reveal a poorer performance in social cognition tasks. The main purpose of this study is to compare the performance on ToM tasks between CM-I patients and healthy controls. The protocol includes Faux Pas test, Happé's Strange Stories test, Ice-Cream Van task, the FEEL test, and the Word Accentuation Test. In order to eliminate the possible influence of covariables, physical pain and anxious-depressive symptomatology have been controlled for. According to the results, CM-I patients performed worse than matched healthy controls on ToM tasks, except for facial emotion recognition. These differences remained even after controlling for the neuropsychiatric variables and physical pain. Thus, it can be suggested that patients with CM-I are impaired in their social skills related to their performance on ToM tasks. These findings can be considered to be a preliminary approach to the specific study of social cognition in relation to CM-I since it is similar to other cerebellar pathologies and to previous literature on the cerebellum's role in social cognition.
Chiari 畸形 I 型（CM-I）是一种神经系统疾病，小脑扁桃体通过枕骨大孔疝入椎管。据报道，这种病理存在广泛的认知缺陷，但关于社会认知的文献不足。临床研究指出小脑在心理理论（ToM）中的作用，表明有几种小脑病理的疾病在社会认知任务中表现出较差的成绩。本研究的主要目的是比较 CM-I 患者和健康对照组在 ToM 任务上的表现。该方案包括错误归因测试、Happé 奇异故事测试、冰淇淋车任务、FEEL 测试和单词重音测试。为了消除可能的协变量的影响，已经控制了身体疼痛和焦虑抑郁症状。根据结果，CM-I 患者在 ToM 任务上的表现不如匹配的健康对照组，除了面部情绪识别。即使在控制神经精神变量和身体疼痛后，这些差异仍然存在。因此，可以认为 CM-I 患者在与 ToM 任务相关的社交技能方面存在障碍。这些发现可以被认为是对 CM-I 与社会认知关系的特定研究的初步尝试，因为它类似于其他小脑病理和以前关于小脑在社会认知中的作用的文献。
