title: Social cognition dysfunctions in patients with epilepsy: Evidence from patients with temporal lobe and idiopathic generalized epilepsies.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Despite an extensive literature on cognitive impairments in focal and generalized epilepsy, only a few number of studies specifically explored social cognition disorders in epilepsy syndromes. The aim of our study was to investigate social cognition abilities in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE).
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-nine patients (21 patients with TLE and 18 patients with IGE) and 21 matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. All subjects underwent a basic neuropsychological battery plus two experimental tasks evaluating emotion recognition from facial expression (Ekman-60-Faces test, Ek-60F) and mental state attribution (Story-based Empathy Task, SET). In particular, the latter is a newly developed task that assesses the ability to infer others' intentions (i.e., intention attribution - IA) and emotions (i.e., emotion attribution - EA) compared with a control condition of physical causality (i.e., causal inferences - CI).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared with HCs, patients with TLE showed significantly lower performances on both social cognition tasks. In particular, all SET subconditions as well as the recognition of negative emotions were significantly impaired in patients with TLE vs. HCs. On the contrary, patients with IGE showed impairments on anger recognition only without any deficit at the SET task.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Emotion recognition deficits occur in patients with epilepsy, possibly because of a global disruption of a pathway involving frontal, temporal, and limbic regions. Impairments of mental state attribution specifically characterize the neuropsychological profile of patients with TLE in the context of the in-depth temporal dysfunction typical of such patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Impairments of socioemotional processing have to be considered as part of the neuropsychological assessment in both TLE and IGE in view of a correct management and for future therapeutic interventions.
authors.affiliation: Experimental Biomedicine and Clinical Neuroscience Department (BioNeC), University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy. Electronic address: sabrinarealmuto@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Realmuto
authors.affiliation: Experimental Biomedicine and Clinical Neuroscience Department (BioNeC), University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Leila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zummo
authors.affiliation: Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy; Neuroscience Division, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy; Clinical Neuroscience Department, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cerami
authors.affiliation: Experimental Biomedicine and Clinical Neuroscience Department (BioNeC), University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Agrò
authors.affiliation: Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy; Neuroscience Division, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dodich
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Division, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy; Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori, Pavia, Italy.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Canessa
authors.affiliation: Experimental Biomedicine and Clinical Neuroscience Department (BioNeC), University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zizzo
authors.affiliation: Experimental Biomedicine and Clinical Neuroscience Department (BioNeC), University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Brigida
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fierro
authors.affiliation: Experimental Biomedicine and Clinical Neuroscience Department (BioNeC), University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Ornella
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Daniele
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000150:complications; D004829:Epilepsy, Generalized / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D005145:Face / Q000503:physiopathology; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology
keywords: Empathy; Idiopathic generalized epilepsy; Neurobehavioral impairment; Social cognition; Temporal lobe epilepsy