Social perceptual function in parkinson’s disease: A meta-analysis

• Published in: Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews 2019-09, Vol.104, p.255-267
• Main Authors: Coundouris, Sarah P., Adams, Alexandra G., Grainger, Sarah A., Henry, Julie D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Deep brain stimulation; Dopaminergic medication; Emotion recognition; Emotions - physiology; Facial Recognition - physiology; Humans; Parkinson Disease - physiopathology; Parkinson plus syndromes; Parkinson’s disease; Recognition, Psychology - physiology; Side of motor symptom onset; Social Perception; Speech Perception - physiology; Stimulus modality; Task type
• ISSN: 0149-7634; 1873-7528
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.07.011

•Parkinson’s disease is associated with significant social perceptual impairment.•The magnitude of this impairment is broadly equivalent across facial and prosodic modalities.•Impairment is evident for all six basic emotions, but is generally greater for negatively valanced emotions.•Both medication and deep brain stimulation are associated with poorer social perceptual function.•People with predominant left side onset of motor symptoms have greater social perceptual difficulties. Social perceptual impairment is a common presenting feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD) that has the potential to contribute considerably to disease burden. The current study reports a meta-analytic integration of 79 studies which shows that, relative to controls, PD is associated with a moderate emotion recognition deficit (g = -0.57, K = 73), and that this deficit is robust and almost identical across facial and prosodic modalities. However, the magnitude of this impairment does appear to vary as a function of task and emotion type, with deficits generally greatest for identification tasks (g = -0.65, K = 54), and for negative relative to other basic emotions. With respect to clinical variables, dopaminergic medication, deep brain stimulation, and a predominant left side onset of motor symptoms are each associated with greater social perceptual difficulties. However, the magnitude of social perceptual impairment seen for the four atypical parkinsonian conditions is broadly comparable to that associated with PD. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.