Title: Facial Expression Recognition and Medication effects in Huntington’s disease
Abstract: Event Abstract Back to Event Facial Expression Recognition and Medication effects in Huntington’s disease Izelle Labuschagne1*, Rebecca Jones2, Jenny Callaghan3, Daisy Whitehead4, Eve Dumas5, Miranda J. Say4, Ellen P. Hart5, Damian Justo6, Allison Coleman7, Rachelle Dar Santos7, Chris Frost2, David I. Craufurd3, Sarah J. Tabrizi4 and Julie C. Stout1 1 Monash University, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Australia 2 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Department of Medical Statistics, United Kingdom 3 The University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre and Central Manchester University Hospital NHS Foundation, United Kingdom 4 University College London, Institute of Neurology, United Kingdom 5 Leiden University Medical Centre, Department of Neurology, Netherlands 6 Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France 7 University of British Columbia,, Department of Medical Genetics, Canada Despite the evidence, there is little agreement about the exact nature and extent of the facial expression recognition deficits across the Huntington’s disease (HD) spectrum. Furthermore, little is known about the effects of medications on emotion recognition abilities. Using data from the Track-HD study, our aims were two-fold. Firstly, we examined facial expression recognition performance in participants comprising of premanifest HD (preHD) and early HD patients, and controls. Secondly, and within the early HD sample, we tested for differences on facial expression recognition performance between those ‘on’ vs. ‘off’ selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or neuroleptic medications. Participants were presented with six basic emotional expressions (happy, sad, angry, fear, surprise, disgust) and neutral expressions which were presented one at a time on the screen in a randomised order. Statistical analyses showed that the preHD groups were significantly impaired on recognising fearful, angry and surprised faces compared to controls. The early HD groups were significantly impaired across all facial expressions. Furthermore, in early HD, SSRI use was associated with better emotion recognition, significantly for disgusted and sad facial expressions, whereas neuroleptic use was associated with worse emotion recognition, significantly for fearful, happy, sad and combined negative facial expressions. Our findings suggest that deficits in recognising facial expressions exist across the HD spectrum and that medications commonly prescribe to HD have shown to affect the recognition of facial expressions. These findings have important implications for the social and emotional symptoms and medications usage associated with HD. Acknowledgements TRACK-HD is supported by the CHDI/High Q Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding treatments for Huntington’s disease. Some of this work was undertaken at UCLH/UCL and the University of Manchester, which received support from the Department of Health’s NIHR Biomedical Research Centres. The authors offer their gratitude to the volunteers who participated and to their carers and companions who helped make their participation possible. Keywords: Facial Expression, neuroleptics, Serotonin, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Huntington Disease, Emotions Conference: ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 29 Nov - 2 Dec, 2012. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Emotion and Social Citation: Labuschagne I, Jones R, Callaghan J, Whitehead D, Dumas E, Say MJ, Hart EP, Justo D, Coleman A, Dar Santos R, Frost C, Craufurd DI, Tabrizi SJ and Stout JC (2012). Facial Expression Recognition and Medication effects in Huntington’s disease. Conference Abstract: ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.208.00061 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 25 Oct 2012; Published Online: 07 Nov 2012. * Correspondence: Dr. Izelle Labuschagne, Monash University, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia, [email protected] Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Izelle Labuschagne Rebecca Jones Jenny Callaghan Daisy Whitehead Eve Dumas Miranda J Say Ellen P Hart Damian Justo Allison Coleman Rachelle Dar Santos Chris Frost David I Craufurd Sarah J Tabrizi Julie C Stout Google Izelle Labuschagne Rebecca Jones Jenny Callaghan Daisy Whitehead Eve Dumas Miranda J Say Ellen P Hart Damian Justo Allison Coleman Rachelle Dar Santos Chris Frost David I Craufurd Sarah J Tabrizi Julie C Stout Google Scholar Izelle Labuschagne Rebecca Jones Jenny Callaghan Daisy Whitehead Eve Dumas Miranda J Say Ellen P Hart Damian Justo Allison Coleman Rachelle Dar Santos Chris Frost David I Craufurd Sarah J Tabrizi Julie C Stout PubMed Izelle Labuschagne Rebecca Jones Jenny Callaghan Daisy Whitehead Eve Dumas Miranda J Say Ellen P Hart Damian Justo Allison Coleman Rachelle Dar Santos Chris Frost David I Craufurd Sarah J Tabrizi Julie C Stout Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. 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