Objective: The aim of the present study was to assess social cognition skills in non-demented Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients.

Background: Social cognition is a multidimensional construct defined by a set of cognitive and emotional abilities applied in social interactions, including theory of mind, affective empathy, emotional perception and social behavior. Along with motor impairments, it seems that PD patients presented deficits in some social cognitive skills that could be related to social isolation. However, these findings are still debated and global assessment of social cognitive abilities in PD has not been carried out yet.

Method: We compared 30 PD patients and 30 healthy controls performance in a set of social cognition tests assessing theory of mind (Reading the mind in the eyes Test) , affective empathy (Empathy Quotient), emotional perception (Emotional facial expression categorization task) and social behavior (Disejecutive questionnaire). We also assess general cognitive performance (MOCA test) and depression (Geriatric Depression Scale).

Results: In comparison to healthy controls, PD patients showed worse theory of mind test scores, impaired emotional perception and social behavior, but not a reduced affective empathy. Deficits were not related to general cognitive performance. However, in PD group, we observed a positive correlation between social cognitive abilities and depression scores.

Conclusion: These results indicate that social cognition impairments alongside to depression are relevant problems in PD, which may contribute to social isolation observed in these patients.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/social-cognition-in-parkinsons-disease/