Objective: The aim of this behavioural study was to test whether motor response is mainly driven by the emotional content of a picture or if it is influenced by motor resonance in PD by using different sets of emotional pictures representing emotional body language (EBL), emotional scenes (IAPS) and facial expressions (FACS).

Background: Emotional processing in PD is thought to be potentially impaired, particularly toward negative emotions¹. Even if it is well known that emotional processing influences behavior^2,3, studies so far did not specifically address whether motor response in PD may be driven by the emotional content of the picture or if it may be influenced by motor mimicry⁴.

Method: 11 PD patients (7 males, mean age: 67.36 ± 5.03; H&Y: 1.91 ± 0.47) and 11 age matched healthy subjects (HS; 6 males, mean age: 65.09 ± 4.21) were enrolled for the experiment. All participants were asked to complete a two-alternative forced choice discrimination task in which they had to press as fast as possible the key corresponding to the emotional (i.e. fearful and happy) visual stimulus respect to the non-emotional (i.e. neutral), in order to estimate response times (RTs). Emotional pictures were taken from three different databases: EBL from the experiments of Borgomaneri and colleagues⁵, emotional scenes from the IAPS database⁶ and facial expressions from the Ekman’s FACS test⁷.

Results: Results showed that, for fearful stimuli, RTs were longer for EBL compared to IAPS (p= 0.03) and FACS (p< 0.01) stimuli, with longer RTs for IAPS respect to FACS (p= 0.01). Such results were not retrievable for happy stimuli, where significantly longer RTs for EBL were found (both p< 0.01), but no differences were found between IAPS and FACS. Shorter RTs were observed for HS compared to PD for happy pictures, but not for fearful stimuli. Moreover, RTs to fearful stimuli for PD resulted shorter compared to happy, while no differences between the two emotional categories were retrieved for HS.

Conclusion: These preliminary results show that in PD patients only, fearful visual stimuli were processed faster than happy. PD presented longer RTs than HS for happy stimuli. Moreover, it appears that there is an increasing complexity in fearful visual stimuli that ranges from EBL as the most complex, to IAPS and finally to FACS pictures as the easiest in both groups.

References: 1. Péron, J., Dondaine, T., Le Jeune, F., Grandjean, D. & Vérin, M. Emotional processing in parkinson’s disease: A systematic review. Mov. Disord. 27, 186–199 (2012). 2. Botta, A., Lagravinese, G., Bove, M., Avenanti, A. & Avanzino, L. Modulation of Response Times During Processing of Emotional Body Language. Front. Psychol. 12, 1–11 (2021). 3. Huis In‘t Veld, E. M. J., van Boxtel, G. J. M. & de Gelder, B. The body action coding system II: Muscle activations during the perception and expression of emotion. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 8, (2014). 4. Ross, P. & Atkinson, A. P. Expanding Simulation Models of Emotional Understanding: The Case for Different Modalities, Body-State Simulation Prominence, and Developmental Trajectories. Frontiers in Psychology vol. 11 (2020). 5. Borgomaneri, S., Gazzola, V. & Avenanti, A. Motor mapping of implied actions during perception of emotional body language. Brain Stimul. 5, 70–76 (2012). 6. Lang Bradley, M.M., & Cuthbert, B.N., P. J. International affective picture system (IAPS): Affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual. (2008). 7. Ekman, P. & Rosenberg, E. What the face reveals. What the Face Reveals (2005).

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/emotional-processing-and-response-times-in-parkinsons-disease/