title: Embodied emotion impairment in Huntington's Disease.
abstract: Theories of embodied cognition suggest that perceiving an emotion involves somatovisceral and motoric re-experiencing. Here we suggest taking such an embodied stance when looking at emotion processing deficits in patients with Huntington's Disease (HD), a neurodegenerative motor disorder. The literature on these patients' emotion recognition deficit has recently been enriched by some reports of impaired emotion expression. The goal of the study was to find out if expression deficits might be linked to a more motoric level of impairment. We used electromyography (EMG) to compare voluntary emotion expression from words to emotion imitation from static face images, and spontaneous emotion mimicry in 28 HD patients and 24 matched controls. For the latter two imitation conditions, an underlying emotion understanding is not imperative (even though performance might be helped by it). EMG measures were compared to emotion recognition and to the capacity to identify and describe emotions using alexithymia questionnaires. Alexithymia questionnaires tap into the more somato-visceral or interoceptive aspects of emotion perception. Furthermore, we correlated patients' expression and recognition scores to cerebral grey matter volume using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). EMG results replicated impaired voluntary emotion expression in HD. Critically, voluntary imitation and spontaneous mimicry were equally impaired and correlated with impaired recognition. By contrast, alexithymia scores were normal, suggesting that emotion representations on the level of internal experience might be spared. Recognition correlated with brain volume in the caudate as well as in areas previously associated with shared action representations, namely somatosensory, posterior parietal, posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and subcentral sulcus. Together, these findings indicate that in these patients emotion deficits might be tied to the "motoric level" of emotion expression. Such a double-sided recognition and expression impairment may have important consequences, interrupting empathy in nonverbal communication both ways (understanding and being understood), independently of intact internal experience of emotion.
authors.affiliation: École Normale Supérieure, Institut d'Étude de la Cognition, Paris, France; Inserm U955-E01, Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédicale, Créteil, France; Université Paris Est Créteil, Medical Faculty, Créteil, France. Electronic address: iris.trinkler@ens.fr.
authors.forename: Iris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Trinkler
authors.affiliation: École Normale Supérieure, Institut d'Étude de la Cognition, Paris, France; Inserm U955-E01, Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédicale, Créteil, France; Université Paris Est Créteil, Medical Faculty, Créteil, France.
authors.forename: Sévérine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Devignevielle
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Amal
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Achaibou
authors.affiliation: École Normale Supérieure, Institut d'Étude de la Cognition, Paris, France; Inserm U955-E01, Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédicale, Créteil, France; Université Paris Est Créteil, Medical Faculty, Créteil, France.
authors.forename: Romain V
authors.initials: RV
authors.lastname: Ligneul
authors.affiliation: Université Paris Est Créteil, Medical Faculty, Créteil, France; Neuroradiology Department, Groupe Henri-Mondor Albert-Chenevier, Créteil, France.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Brugières
authors.affiliation: École Normale Supérieure, Institut d'Étude de la Cognition, Paris, France; Inserm U955-E01, Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédicale, Créteil, France; Université Paris Est Créteil, Medical Faculty, Créteil, France; Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Huntington's Disease Reference Center, Groupe Henri-Mondor Albert-Chenevier, Créteil, France.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cleret de Langavant
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: De Gelder
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Rachael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Scahill
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.affiliation: École Normale Supérieure, Institut d'Étude de la Cognition, Paris, France; Inserm U955-E01, Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédicale, Créteil, France; Université Paris Est Créteil, Medical Faculty, Créteil, France; Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Huntington's Disease Reference Center, Groupe Henri-Mondor Albert-Chenevier, Créteil, France.
authors.forename: Anne-Catherine
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Bachoud-Lévi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D019260:Expressed Emotion / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology
keywords: Electromyography; Embodiment; Emotion expression; Empathy; Huntington's Disease