title: Intact emotion recognition and experience but dysfunctional emotion regulation in idiopathic Parkinson's disease.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A specific non-motor impairment in Parkinson's disease (PD) concerns difficulties to accurately identify facial emotions. Findings are numerous but very inconsistent, ranging from general discrimination deficits to problems for specific emotions up to no impairment at all. By contrast, only a few studies exist about emotion experience, altered affective traits and states in PD.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the decoding capacity for affective facial expressions, affective experience of emotion-eliciting images and affective personality traits in PD.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study sample included 25 patients with mild to moderate symptom intensity and 25 healthy controls (HC) of both sexes. The participants were shown pictures of facial expressions depicting disgust, fear, and anger as well as disgusting and fear-relevant scenes. Additionally, they answered self-report scales for the assessment of affective traits.
  
  
  RESULTS
  PD patients had more problems in controlling anger and disgust feelings than HC. Higher disgust sensitivity in PD was associated with lower functioning in everyday life and lower capacity to recognize angry faces. Furthermore, patients reported less disgust towards poor hygiene and spoiled food and they stated elevated anxiety. However, the clinical group displayed intact facial emotion decoding and emotion experience. Everyday life functionality was lowered in PD and decreased with stronger motor impairment. Furthermore, disease duration was negatively associated to correct classification of angry faces.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data indicate that problems with emotion regulation may appear already in earlier disease stages of PD. By contrast, PD patients showed appropriate emotion recognition and experience. However, data also point to a deterioration of emotion recognition capacity with the course of the disease. Compensatory mechanisms in PD patients with less advanced disease are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychology, University of Graz, Austria. Electronic address: rottraut.ille@uni-graz.at.
authors.forename: Rottraut
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ille
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychology, University of Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wabnegger
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Medical University of Graz, Auenbruggerplatz 22A, 8036 Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schwingenschuh
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Medical University of Graz, Auenbruggerplatz 22A, 8036 Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Katschnig-Winter
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Medical University of Graz, Auenbruggerplatz 22A, 8036 Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Mariella
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kögl-Wallner
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Medical University of Graz, Auenbruggerplatz 22A, 8036 Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Karoline
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wenzel
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychology, University of Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schienle
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000368:Aged; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Affective traits; Compensatory mechanisms; Disease severity; Emotion experience; Emotion regulation; Facial emotion recognition; Parkinson's disease