title: Does Facial Amimia Impact the Recognition of Facial Emotions? An EMG Study in Parkinson's Disease.
abstract: According to embodied simulation theory, understanding other people's emotions is fostered by facial mimicry. However, studies assessing the effect of facial mimicry on the recognition of emotion are still controversial. In Parkinson's disease (PD), one of the most distinctive clinical features is facial amimia, a reduction in facial expressiveness, but patients also show emotional disturbances. The present study used the pathological model of PD to examine the role of facial mimicry on emotion recognition by investigating EMG responses in PD patients during a facial emotion recognition task (anger, joy, neutral). Our results evidenced a significant decrease in facial mimicry for joy in PD, essentially linked to the absence of reaction of the zygomaticus major and the orbicularis oculi muscles in response to happy avatars, whereas facial mimicry for expressions of anger was relatively preserved. We also confirmed that PD patients were less accurate in recognizing positive and neutral facial expressions and highlighted a beneficial effect of facial mimicry on the recognition of emotion. We thus provide additional arguments for embodied simulation theory suggesting that facial mimicry is a potential lever for therapeutic actions in PD even if it seems not to be necessarily required in recognizing emotion as such.
authors.affiliation: Behavior and Basal Ganglia" research unit (EA4712), University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France.|Neuroscience of Emotion and Affective Dynamics laboratory, Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Soizic
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Argaud
authors.affiliation: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Campus Biotech, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Delplanque
authors.affiliation: Behavior and Basal Ganglia" research unit (EA4712), University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France.|Department of Neurology, Rennes University Hospital, Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Houvenaghel
authors.affiliation: Behavior and Basal Ganglia" research unit (EA4712), University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Manon
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Auffret
authors.affiliation: Behavior and Basal Ganglia" research unit (EA4712), University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Duprez
authors.affiliation: Behavior and Basal Ganglia" research unit (EA4712), University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France.|Department of Neurology, Rennes University Hospital, Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vérin
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience of Emotion and Affective Dynamics laboratory, Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.|Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Campus Biotech, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Didier
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grandjean
authors.affiliation: Behavior and Basal Ganglia" research unit (EA4712), University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France.|Department of Neurophysiology, Rennes University Hospital, Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sauleau
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D004576:Electromyography / Q000379:methods*; D004644:Emotions; D005152:Facial Muscles / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*