Subthalamic nucleus stimulation affects subjective emotional experience in Parkinson's disease patients.
A number of studies have reported impaired facial emotion recognition following subthalamic nucleus (STN) stimulation in Parkinson's disease (PD), and have related these changes to a limbic dysfunction induced by STN stimulation. The present study examined the effect of STN stimulation in PD patients on a specific component of emotion, namely the subjective experience of emotion. Thirteen post-operative PD patients, 13 pre-operative PD patients matched on clinical and neuropsychological characteristics, and 16 controls matched on age and education, were administered a validated battery of film excerpts known to primarily induce specific emotional feelings (anger, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, and neutral), and self-rated the intensity of their emotional feelings on a discrete emotions questionnaire. The post-operative group showed a significant lower level of differentiation between the target feeling (i.e., the more likely to be reported) and non-target feelings for the film excerpts intended to induce "sadness" and "fear" respectively, as compared with the pre-operative and healthy control groups. Moreover, the post-operative group reported significantly less intense feelings of fear, anxiety and disgust for the excerpt intended to induce "fear" as compared with the pre-operative and the control groups, while no significant difference was observed between the pre-operative and control groups. Finally, the post-operative group reported significantly less intense feelings of sadness and anxiety during the excerpt intended to induce "sadness" as compared to the control group, although the differences between the pre- and post-operative groups and between the pre-operative and the control groups did not reach significance. Our study suggests that STN stimulation affects the subjective experience of emotion, thus providing a preliminary account of the modulation induced by STN stimulation of a distributed neuronal network underlying the subjective experience of emotion, although the exact contribution of the STN within such network remains to be specified.
Unité de Recherche Universitaire 425 Comportement et Noyaux Gris Centraux, Université de Rennes 1, Service de Neurologie, CHU de Rennes, France. siobhan.vicente@univ-poitiers.fr
Siobhan
S
Vicente
Isabelle
I
Biseul
Julie
J
Péron
Pierre
P
Philippot
Sophie
S
Drapier
Dominique
D
Drapier
Paul
P
Sauleau
Claire
C
Haegelen
Marc
M
Vérin
D046690:Deep Brain Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D020531:Subthalamic Nucleus / Q000502:physiology*