Affiliations: [a]
Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Cologne, Medical Faculty, Cologne, Germany
| [b] Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| [c]
German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany
| [d] Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Dr. Ann-Katrin Schild, Department of Psychiatry, Medical Faculty, University Hospital Cologne AöR, Kerpener Str. 62, 50937 Cologne, Germany. Tel.: +49 221 478 32298; E-mail: ann-katrin.schild@uk-koeln.de.
Abstract: Background:Social cognition (SC) is a core criterion for neurocognitive disorders. However, findings in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) are inconsistent. Objective:We report assessments of emotion recognition (ER), affective and cognitive theory of mind (ToM) in young (YC) and older controls (OC) compared to aMCI and DAT. Methods:28 aMCI, 30 DAT, 30 YC, and 29 OC received tests of SC and a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. Analysis of covariance was used to determine group differences. Multiple regression models were applied to identify predictors for each SC task. Results:In controls, OC performed worse in ER and both ToM tasks compared to YC except for one subtest. No significant differences were found between OC and patients concerning ER and affective ToM. In cognitive ToM, differences between OC and patients depended on content and cognitive load with significant impairment in DAT compared to OC. A cognitive composite score predicted SC in OC, but not in patients. Associations of SC with single cognitive domains were found in all groups with language and complex attention as best predictors. Not all variance of SC performance was explained by variance in cognitive domains. Conclusion:Lower performance on SC tasks in OC versus YC was confirmed, although not all tasks were equally affected. With progressive cognitive impairment, cognitive ToM is more impaired than ER or affective ToM. SC seems to be at least partly independent of other cognitive domains, justifying its inclusion in batteries for dementia diagnostic.
Keywords: Amnestic mild cognitive impairment, dementia of the Alzheimer type, emotion recognition, social cognition, theory of mind
