Łukasz Okruszek

Impaired Recognition of Communicative Interactions from Biological Motion in Schizophrenia

Background Patients with schizophrenia are deficient in multiple aspects of social cognition, including biological motion perception. In the present study we investigated the ability to read social information from point-light stimuli in schizophrenia. Methodology/Principal Findings Participants with paranoid schizophrenia and healthy controls were presented with a biological motion task depicting point-light actions of two agents either engaged in a communicative interaction, or acting independently of each other. For each stimulus, participants were asked to decide whether the two agents were communicating vs. acting independently of each other (task A), and to select the correct action description among five response alternatives (task B). Participants were also presented with a mental rotation task to assess their visuospatial abilities, and with a facial emotion recognition task tapping social cognition. Results revealed that participants with schizophrenia performed overall worse than controls both in discriminating communicative from non-communicative actions (task A) and in selecting which of the 5 response alternatives best described the observed actions (task B). Interestingly, the impaired performance of schizophrenic participants was mainly due to misclassification of non-communicative stimuli as communicative actions. Correlation analysis revealed that visuospatial abilities predicted performance in task A but not in task B, while facial emotion recognition abilities was correlated with performance in both task A and task B. Conclusions/Significance These findings are consistent with theories of “overmentalizing” (excessive attribution of intentionality) in schizophrenia, and suggest that processing social information from biological motion does rely on social cognition abilities.

Social cognition in neuropsychiatric populations: a comparison of theory of mind in schizophrenia and mesial temporal lobe epilepsy

Social cognition deficits are observed both in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and in patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). This may be due to dysfunction of the amygdala network, which is a common feature of both diseases. In this study, SCZ (n = 48) or MTLE (n = 31) and healthy controls (HC, n = 47) completed assessments of mentalising (Reading Mind in the Eyes Test, RMET) and basic cognitive processing, e.g., working memory, executive functions and psychomotor speed (Trail-Making Test B and Digit Symbol). SCZ were also assessed with the Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). We found that the RMET scores of the two clinical groups were similar (p > 0.05) and lower than in the HCs (SCZ: p < 0.05; MTLE: p < 0.001). In the next step, SCZ were split into two groups with respect to the level of symptoms. Analysis of the RMET scores revealed no differences between the HC (M = 25.7 ± 4.1) and POS-LO (M = 25.3 ± 4.8); both groups outperformed the POS-HI group (M = 21.3 ± 5.2) and the MTLE group (M = 20.8 ± 4.6). No differences were found for the median-split with regard to negative symptoms. In SCZ, the mind-reading deficit appears to be associated with the level of positive symptoms. Both POS-HI and MTLE patients present significant mentalising deficits compared to healthy controls.

Low Risk for Switch to Mania during Treatment with Sleep Promoting Antidepressants

INTRODUCTION Sleep-promoting antidepressants are of interest because they are used not only as antidepressants, but also to promote sleep. METHODS We reviewed case reports describing the switch to mania during treatment with trazodone, mirtazapine, or agomelatine. RESULTS Trazodone, mirtazapine, and agomelatine may induce manic symptoms. However, the risk of switching is related, first of all, to doses recommended for antidepressant treatment, administered without mood-stabilizer co-therapy. Low doses of these antidepressants, used for their hypnotic or sedative effects, were observed to cause mania only in patients with other risk factors for switching. There is no evidence for trazodone or mirtazapine and only sparse evidence for agomelatine, claiming that treatment with these antidepressants is related to an increased risk of switching to mania when administered in combination with a mood stabilizer. DISCUSSION These findings suggest that low doses of trazodone and mirtazapine are safe in bipolar disorder, and should still be considered important alternatives to hypnotics when long-term pharmacological treatment of insomnia is necessary. It seems that these antidepressants and agomelatine can also be used safely in antidepressant doses when combined with a mood stabilizer.

The Multilingual CID-5: A New Tool to Study the Perception of Communicative Interactions in Different Languages

The investigation of the ability to perceive, recognize, and judge upon social intentions, such as communicative intentions, on the basis of body motion is a growing research area. Cross-cultural differences in ability to perceive and interpret biological motion, however, have been poorly investigated so far. Progress in this domain strongly depends on the availability of suitable stimulus material. In the present method paper, we describe the multilingual CID-5, an extension of the CID-5 database, allowing for the investigation of how non-conventional communicative gestures are classified and identified by speakers of different languages. The CID-5 database contains 14 communicative interactions and 7 non-communicative actions performed by couples of agents and presented as point-light displays. For each action, the database provides movie files with the point-light animation, text files with the 3-D spatial coordinates of the point-lights, and five different response alternatives. In the multilingual CID-5 the alternatives were translated into seven languages (Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, and Polish). Preliminary data collected to assess the recognizability of the actions in the different languages suggest that, for most of the action stimuli, information presented in point-light displays is sufficient for the distinctive classification of the action as communicative vs. individual, as well as for identification of the specific communicative gesture performed by the actor in all the available languages.

Electroencephalographic theta activity and cognition in schizophrenia: Preliminary results

Abstract Objectives. MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) is a contemporary standard for assessment of cognitive functions in schizophrenia. The aim of the study was to examine the association between electroencephalographic spectral power and a wide range of cognitive functions measured with MCCB. Methods. Thirty-nine patients with schizophrenia (27 male, mean age 28.2 ± 5.2 years) underwent EEG recordings and were assessed with MCCB. The EEG recordings were visually inspected and manually cleaned from artifacts and subjected to spectral analysis with EEGlab. Absolute and relative power as percentage of total spectral power were computed for frequency ranges from 0.5 to 30 Hz. To compare spectral power in patients with various cognitive functioning, patients from best and worst MCCB quartiles were selected. Results. Superior cognitive performance was associated with less power of theta waves. Six MCCB cognitive tests showed significant correlations with absolute theta power and three tests with relative theta power. The correlation coefficients between MCCB composite score and theta power were rp = −0.45 for absolute and rp = −0.36 for relative values. Increased theta power was linked especially to memory deficits. Conclusions. These preliminary results suggest that electroencephalographic resting state theta power is an indicator of cognitive deficit in patients with schizophrenia.

Clustering and Switching Strategies During the Semantic Fluency Task in Men with Frontal Lobe Lesions and in Men with Schizophrenia

Differences in semantic clustering and switching were examined in men with frontal lobe lesions, men with schizophrenia and healthy men. Men with frontal lobe lesions and men with schizophrenia generated fewer words than healthy men and presented intact clustering, but decreased switching during the semantic fluency task. However, after controlling for the number of words produced, between-group differences in switching disappeared. These findings suggest that all three groups used similar strategies of clustering and switching during the semantic fluency task, although men with frontal lobe lesions and men with schizophrenia did it less efficiently than healthy men.

Social Perception in Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: Interpreting Social Information From Moving Shapes and Biological Motion

Dysfunction in the understanding of social signals has been reported in persons with epilepsy, which may partially explain lower levels of life satisfaction in this patient population. Extensive assessment is necessary, particularly when the mesial temporal lobe, responsible for emotion processing, is affected. The authors examined multiple levels of social perception in patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE), including judgments of point-light motion displays of human communicative interactions (Communicative Interactions Database-5 Alternative Forced Choice format) and theory-of-mind processes evaluated using geometric shapes (Frith-Happé animations [FHA]). This case-control study included MTLE patients with anterior temporal lobectomies (ATL+) (N=19), MTLE patients without lobectomies (ATL-) (N=21), and healthy controls (HCs) (N=20). Both groups of MTLE patients were less efficient in recognizing goal-directed and mentalizing interactions of FHA compared with HC subjects. The ATL+ group attributed emotions to FHA less accurately than HC subjects. Both the ATL- and ATL+ groups classified individual point-light animations more often as communicative than the HC group. ATL+ patients were also less efficient in interpreting point-light animations in terms of individual actions than the HC group. The number of years of epilepsy duration was inversely correlated with recognition of FHA interactions. The mean number of seizures was inversely correlated with the interaction identification in point-light stimuli. Patients with MTLE, irrespective of surgical treatment, present impaired social perception in domains assessed with abstract moving shapes or nonabstract biological motion. This impairment may be the basis of problems faced by patients reporting difficulties in understanding the intentions and feelings of other individuals.

Gaze matters! The effect of gaze direction on emotional enhancement of memory for faces in patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy

PURPOSE The aim of the study was to examine if gaze and emotional expression, both highly self-relevant social signals, affect the recollection accuracy of perceived faces in patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). METHODS Forty patients with MTLE (twenty-one without surgery and nineteen after anterior temporal lobectomy) as well as twenty healthy controls (HC) took part in the study. We used a set of 64 facial stimuli: 32 neutral and 32 emotional displays (16 fearful; 16 angry) from well-established affective stimuli databases. Half of the faces in each condition had eyes directed straight and half - away from the observer. Participants performed a gender identification task, and then, after a 45-minute delay were asked to identify the previously seen stimuli, presented among a new set of photos. RESULTS Increased automatic learning of angry and fearful compared to neutral expressions was found in HC. There was no emotional enhancement of memory in MTLE but an increased learning for faces with averted than direct gaze. CONCLUSION Our results expand on previous research by demonstrating that emotion expression and gaze direction can affect memory of faces. The study supports the hypothesis that healthy individuals and patients with temporal lobe abnormalities present different patterns of emotional gazes processing. The potential consequences of altered emotional gaze processing and social cognition impairments need to be further investigated to improve the quality of life of patients with MTLE.