Neurology Department, Maison-Blanche Hospital, Reims, France.
Laboratoire Mémoire Cerveau et Cognition (UR 7536), Université Paris Cité, Boulogne-Billancourt, France.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2024 Sep;46(7):644-654. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2024.2391362. Epub 2024 Aug 14.
Emotion categorization has often been studied in the relapsing-remitting form of multiple sclerosis (RR-MS), suggesting an impairment in the recognition of emotions. The production of facial emotional expressions in RR-MS has not been considered, despite their importance in non-verbal communication.
Twenty-five RR-MS patients and twenty-five matched controls completed a task of emotional categorization during which their faces were filmed. The stimuli were dynamic (sound or visual), expressed by adults (women or men), and expressing happy (laughing or smiling) or negative emotion. Two independent blinded raters quantified the happy facial expressions produced. The categorization task was used as a proxy for emotional categorization, while the happy facial expressions produced assessed the production of emotions.
The main analysis indicated impaired categorization of RR-MS for happy stimuli selectively, whereas their happy facial expressions were not statistically different from those of the control group. More specifically, this group effect was found for smiles (and not laughter) and for happy stimuli produced by men. Analysis of individual patient profiles suggested that 77% of patients with impaired judgments produced normal facial expressions, suggesting a high prevalence of this dissociation. Only 8% of our samples showed reverse dissociation, with happy facial expressions significantly different from those of the control group and normal emotional judgments.
These results corroborated the high prevalence of emotional categorization impairment in RR-MS but not for negative stimuli, which can probably be explained by the methodological specificities of the present work. The unusual impairment found for happy stimuli (for both emotional categorization and facial congruence) may be linked to the intensity of the perceived happy expressions but not to the emotional valence. Our results also indicated a mainly preserved production of facial emotions, which may be used in the future sociocognitive care of RR-MS patients with impaired emotional judgments.
情绪分类在多发性硬化症（RR-MS）的缓解-复发形式中经常被研究，表明在识别情绪方面存在障碍。尽管面部情绪表达在非言语交流中很重要，但 RR-MS 患者的面部情绪表达生产尚未被考虑。
25 名 RR-MS 患者和 25 名匹配的对照者完成了一项情绪分类任务，在此期间他们的面部被拍摄下来。刺激物是动态的（声音或视觉），由成年人（女性或男性）表达，表达快乐（大笑或微笑）或负面情绪。两名独立的盲审员对产生的快乐面部表情进行了量化。分类任务被用作情绪分类的代理，而产生的快乐面部表情则评估了情绪的产生。
主要分析表明，RR-MS 患者对快乐刺激的分类能力受损，而他们的快乐面部表情与对照组无统计学差异。更具体地说，这种组效应仅在男性产生的微笑（而不是大笑）和快乐刺激中发现。对个体患者的分析表明，77%的判断受损患者产生了正常的面部表情，表明这种分离的高患病率。只有 8%的样本显示出相反的分离，其快乐面部表情与对照组明显不同，情绪判断正常。
这些结果证实了 RR-MS 患者情绪分类障碍的高患病率，但对负面刺激则不然，这可能是由于本研究工作的方法特殊性。对快乐刺激发现的不寻常的损伤（无论是在情绪分类还是面部一致性方面）可能与感知到的快乐表情的强度有关，而与情绪效价无关。我们的结果还表明，面部情绪的产生主要得到保留，这可能在未来 RR-MS 患者情绪判断受损的社会认知护理中得到应用。
