Psychiatry Department, University College London, London, UK.
Institute of Neurology, UCL, London, UK.
BMC Psychiatry. 2021 Nov 29;21(1):597. doi: 10.1186/s12888-021-03545-z.
Social cognition is an important area of mental functioning relevant to psychiatric disorders and social functioning, that may be affected by psychiatric drug treatments. The aim of this review was to investigate the effects of medications with sedative properties, on social cognition.
This systematic review included experimental and neuroimaging studies investigating drug effects on social cognition. Data quality was assessed using a modified Downs and Black checklist (Trac et al. CMAJ 188: E120-E129, 2016). The review used narrative synthesis to analyse the data.
40 papers were identified for inclusion, 11 papers investigating benzodiazepine effects, and 29 investigating antipsychotic effects, on social cognition. Narrative synthesis showed that diazepam impairs healthy volunteer's emotion recognition, with supporting neuroimaging studies showing benzodiazepines attenuate amygdala activity. Studies of antipsychotic effects on social cognition gave variable results. However, many of these studies were in patients already taking medication, and potential practice effects were identified due to short-term follow-ups.
Healthy volunteer studies suggest that diazepam reduces emotional processing ability. The effects of benzodiazepines on other aspects of social cognition, as well as the effects of antipsychotics, remain unclear. Interpretations of the papers in this review were limited by variability in measures, small sample sizes, and lack of randomisation. More robust studies are necessary to evaluate the impact of these medications on social cognition.
社会认知是与精神障碍和社会功能相关的重要精神功能领域，可能会受到精神药物治疗的影响。本综述的目的是调查具有镇静作用的药物对社会认知的影响。
本系统综述包括了实验和神经影像学研究，这些研究调查了药物对社会认知的影响。使用改良的唐斯和布莱克清单（Trac 等人，CMAJ 188: E120-E129, 2016）评估数据质量。该综述采用叙述性综合分析数据。
确定了 40 篇纳入的论文，其中 11 篇研究苯二氮䓬类药物的影响，29 篇研究抗精神病药物对社会认知的影响。叙述性综合表明，地西泮会损害健康志愿者的情绪识别能力，支持的神经影像学研究表明苯二氮䓬类药物会减弱杏仁核的活动。关于抗精神病药物对社会认知影响的研究结果不一。然而，许多此类研究是针对已经服药的患者进行的，由于短期随访，存在潜在的练习效应。
健康志愿者的研究表明，地西泮会降低情绪处理能力。苯二氮䓬类药物对社会认知的其他方面的影响以及抗精神病药物的影响仍不清楚。本综述中的论文的解释受到测量的可变性、样本量小以及缺乏随机化的限制。需要更有力的研究来评估这些药物对社会认知的影响。
