Impairment of recognition of disgust in Chinese with Huntington's or Wilson's disease.
The selective involvement of the basal ganglia in recognition of the facial expression of disgust was investigated by examining a group of six symptomatic Huntington's disease patients and 32 Wilson's disease patients in China. Morphed photographs of facial expressions covering happiness-surprise-fear-sadness-disgust-anger were used and the patients were asked to label each photo. Other measures assessed basic cognitive functions and perception of non-emotion facial information, such as perception of gender, age, gaze direction, and recognition of unfamiliar as well as famous people. There was dissociation between the perception of emotions and other facial information, and between impairment of recognition of disgust and other emotions. The basal ganglia are the overlapping substrate involved in both Huntington's and Wilson's disease, although each has its own other lesions. The differentially severe impairment of recognition of disgust in the Chinese Huntington's disease and Wilson's disease patients strengthens the view that basal ganglia are selectively involved in processing the emotion of disgust.
Wang
Kai
K
Department of Neurology, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Jixi Road, Anhui Province, Hefei, PR China. shenliwk@mail.hf.ah.cn
Hoosain
Rumjahn
R
Yang
Ren-Min
RM
Meng
Yu
Y
Wang
Chang-Qing
CQ
D000328:Adult; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006527:Hepatolenticular Degeneration / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D012938:Social Perception