Adult patients with the genetic disease neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) frequently report social difficulties. To date, however, only two studies have explored whether these difficulties are caused by social cognition deficits, and these yielded contradictory data. The aim of the present study was to exhaustively assess social cognition abilities (emotion, theory of mind, moral reasoning, and social information processing) in adults with NF1, compared with a control group, and to explore links between social cognition and disease characteristics (mode of inheritance, severity, and visibility).

We administered a social cognition battery to 20 adults with NF1 (mean age = 26.5 years, SD = 7.4) and 20 healthy adults matched for sociodemographic variables.

Patients scored significantly lower than controls on emotion, theory of mind, moral reasoning, and social information processing tasks. No effects of disease characteristics were found.

These results appear to confirm that adults with NF1 have a social cognition weaknesses that could explain, at least in part, their social difficulties, although social abilities are not all impaired to the same extent. Regarding the impact of the disease characteristics, the patient sample seemed slightly insufficient for the power analyses performed. Thus, this exploratory study should form the basis of further research, with the objective of replicating these results with larger and more appropriately matched samples.

Older adults are identified to have reduced social cognitive performance compared to younger adults. However, few studies have examined age-associations throughout later life to determine whether these reductions continue with advancing age.

This study assesses cross-sectional associations of emotion perception, cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM), and emotional empathy in a healthy sample of 157 adults aged 50–89 years (M = 65.31, SD = 9.00, 68% female sex). Emotion perception, cognitive ToM, and affective ToM were measured using The Awareness of Social Inference Test Short Form (TASIT-S), while affective ToM was also measured using Reading the Mind in the Eyes Revised (RME-R). Emotional empathy was measured using the Empathy Quotient.

Multiple regression analyses, adjusting for multiple comparisons, revealed a moderate negative association between age and emotion perception for all emotions combined, as well as for sad and revolted expressions, but not happy, neutral, anxious, or angry expressions. Age had a negative, moderate association with first-order cognitive, second-order cognitive, and affective ToM measured using TASIT-S, but not RME-R. Age was not significantly associated with emotional empathy.

This study contributes to the limited understanding of age-related associations of social cognitive performance throughout later life. This knowledge can inform future research examining the clinical utility of including social cognitive measures in neuropsychological screening and diagnostic tools for later-life neurological disorders.

Altered affective state recognition is assumed to be a root cause of aggressive behavior, a hallmark of psychopathologies such as psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. However, the two most influential models make markedly different predictions regarding the underlying mechanism. According to the integrated emotion system theory (IES), aggression reflects impaired processing of social distress cues such as fearful faces. In contrast, the hostile attribution bias (HAB) model explains aggression with a bias to interpret ambiguous expressions as angry.

In a set of four experiments, we measured processing of fearful and angry facial expressions (compared to neutral and other expressions) in a sample of 65 male imprisoned violent offenders rated using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R, Hare, R. D. (1991). The psychopathy checklist–revised. Toronto, ON: Multi-Health Systems) and in 60 age-matched control participants.

There was no evidence for a fear deficit in violent offenders or for an association of psychopathy or aggression with impaired processing of fearful faces. Similarly, there was no evidence for a perceptual bias for angry faces linked to psychopathy or aggression. However, using highly ambiguous stimuli and requiring explicit labeling of emotions, violent offenders showed a categorization bias for anger and this anger bias correlated with self-reported trait aggression (but not with psychopathy).

These results add to a growing literature casting doubt on the notion that fear processing is impaired in aggressive individuals and in psychopathy and provide support for the idea that aggression is related to a hostile attribution bias that emerges from later cognitive, post-perceptual processing stages.

Previous studies have found deficits in imaginative elaboration and social inference to be associated with agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC; Renteria-Vasquez et al., 2022; Turk et al., 2009). In the current study, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) responses from a neurotypical control group and a group of individuals with ACC were used to further study the capacity for imaginative elaboration and story coherence.

Topic modeling was employed utilizing Latent Diritchlet Allocation to characterize the narrative responses to the pictures used in the TAT. A measure of the difference between models (perplexity) was used to compare the topics of the responses of individual participants to the common core model derived from the responses of the control group. Story coherence was tested using sentence-to-sentence Latent Semantic Analysis.

Group differences in perplexity were statistically significant overall, and for each card individually (p < .001). There were no differences between the groups in story coherence.

TAT narratives from persons with ACC were normally coherent, but more conventional (i.e., more similar to the core text) compared to those of neurotypical controls. Individuals with ACC can make conventional social inferences about socially ambiguous stimuli, but are restricted in their imaginative elaborations, resulting in less topical variability (lower perplexity values) compared to neurotypical controls.

Although obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is highly prevalent in schizophrenia, its relationship with patients’ real-life functioning is still controversial.

The present study aims at investigating the prevalence of OCD in a large cohort of non-preselected schizophrenia patients living in the community and verifying the relationship of OCD, as well as of other psychopathological symptoms, with real-life functioning along a continuum of OCD severity and after controlling for demographic variables.

A sample of 327 outpatients with schizophrenia was enrolled in the study and collapsed into three subgroups according to OCD severity (subclinical, mild–moderate, severe). A series of structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to analyze in each subgroup the association of obsessive–compulsive symptoms with real-life functioning, assessed through the Specific Levels of Functioning Scale and the UCSD Performance-Based Skills Assessment. Moreover, latent profile analysis (LPA) was performed to infer latent subpopulations. In the subclinical OCD group, obsessive–compulsive symptoms (OCS) were not associated with functioning, whereas in the mild–moderate OCD group, they showed a positive relationship, particularly in the domains of work and everyday life skills. The paucity of patients with severe OCD did not allow performing SEM analysis in this group. Finally, LPA confirmed a subgroup with mild–moderate OCS and more preserved levels of functioning.

These findings hint at a positive association between mild–moderate OCD and real-life functioning in individuals with schizophrenia and encourage a careful assessment of OCD in personalized programs to sustain daily life activities.

People with schizophrenia on average are more socially isolated, lonelier, have more social cognitive impairment, and are less socially motivated than healthy individuals. People with bipolar disorder also have social isolation, though typically less than that seen in schizophrenia. We aimed to disentangle whether the social cognitive and social motivation impairments observed in schizophrenia are a specific feature of the clinical condition v. social isolation generally.

We compared four groups (clinically stable patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, individuals drawn from the community with self-described social isolation, and a socially connected community control group) on loneliness, social cognition, and approach and avoidance social motivation.

Individuals with schizophrenia (n = 72) showed intermediate levels of social isolation, loneliness, and social approach motivation between the isolated (n = 96) and connected control (n = 55) groups. However, they showed significant deficits in social cognition compared to both community groups. Individuals with bipolar disorder (n = 48) were intermediate between isolated and control groups for loneliness and social approach. They did not show deficits on social cognition tasks. Both clinical groups had higher social avoidance than both community groups

The results suggest that social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, and high social avoidance motivation in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are distinct features of the clinical conditions and not byproducts of social isolation. In contrast, differences between clinical and control groups on levels of loneliness and social approach motivation were congruent with the groups' degree of social isolation.

Classical galactosemia (CG) is an inborn error of galactose metabolism. Many CG patients suffer from long-term complications including poor cognitive functioning. There are indications of social dysfunction but limited evidence in the literature. Therefore, this study aims to improve our understanding of social competence in CG by investigating social cognition, neurocognition and emotion regulation.

A comprehensive (neuro)psychological test battery, including self and proxy questionnaires, was administered to CG patients without intellectual disability. Social cognition was assessed by facial emotion recognition, Theory of Mind and self-reported empathy. Standardised results were compared to normative data of the general population.

Data from 23 patients (aged 8–52) were included in the study. On a group level, CG patients reported satisfaction with social roles and no social dysfunction despite the self-report of lower social skills. They showed deficits in all aspects of social cognition on both performance tests (emotion recognition and Theory of Mind) and self-report questionnaires (empathy). Adults had a lower social participation than the general population. Parents reported lower social functioning, less adaptive emotion regulation and communication difficulties in their children. Individual differences in scores were present.

This study shows that CG patients without intellectual disability are satisfied with their social competence, especially social functioning. Nevertheless, deficits in social cognition are present in a large proportion of CG patients. Due to the large variability in scores and discrepancies between self- and proxy-report, an individually tailored, comprehensive neuropsychological assessment including social cognition is advised in all CG patients. Treatment plans need to be customised to the individual patient.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with cognitive and social cognitive deficits. Social cognition impairments may include difficulty with facial expression and emotion recognition. People with MS (PwMS) may also not be aware of their cognitive challenges as demonstrated through discrepant objective and subjective assessments. Research recently conducted in demyelinated mouse models demonstrated that metformin, a drug typically used to treat type II diabetes mellitus (DMII), promotes remyelination and reverses existent social cognition impairment by repressing the monoacylglycerol lipase (MgII) enzyme in the brain. We aim to translate this basic science research and are conducting a pilot study to determine if metformin improves social cognition in PwMS. This project will compare social cognition in those with MS and comorbid DMII who are treated with metformin and those who are not. For the purposes of this interim data analysis, we collapse across both MS groups who are, and who are not, treated with metformin. The current objective is to evaluate the relationship between subjective (i.e., perceived empathy), objective social cognition and information processing speed (IPS) in PwMS and co-morbid diabetes.

Preliminary data on 15 PwMS are included. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, a cognitive assessment battery, an objective social cognition assessment and self-report questionnaires. These questionnaires assessed subjective social cognition, fatigue, mood, and disability level.

Preliminary results showed that IPS was positively correlated with the affective empathy domain of social cognition, r = .53, p = .04. Additionally, IPS was positively correlated with objective social cognition, r = .71, p = 003. Follow-up regression analyses demonstrated that IPS predicted objective social cognition, R2 = .71, SE = 3.04, F(1,13) = 13.36, p = .003 and subjective social cognition, R2 = .53, SE = 5.39, F(1,13) = 4.97, p = .04. However, subjective and objective measures of social cognition were not correlated, p > .05 and remained uncorrelated when IPS was controlled for, p > .05.

A majority of the variance in social perception is explained by IPS, suggesting that how quickly one can think may be a fundamental cognitive process to allow optimal functioning in social situations. While the reason for the relationship between IPS and subjective social cognition is perhaps less apparent, it may reflect a more global cognitive compromise that impacts both cognitive and social processes. This lends support to the Relative Consequence Model that suggests IPS deficits are a fundamental cognitive deficit underlying other more complex cognitive processes. The lack of correlation between subjective perception of empathy and objective social cognition requires further exploration and could potentially be related to some individuals with MS having a diminished ability to judge their own social proficiency. Further analyses with a larger sample will be conducted to assess group differences in social cognitive outcomes and MgII levels between metformin and non-metformin groups. If PwMS who take metformin have better social cognition compared to PwMS who do not take metformin, Mgll levels can be used as a biomarker to guide metformin treatment with the goal of improving social cognition.

Abnormalities in social and emotional behavior are the major diagnostic criteria for behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Investigators have attributed their behavioral disturbances to disease in mesial prefrontal and related networks, such as the salience network. This study examined the main neural correlates of informant-reported socioemotional dysfunction among patients with bvFTD compared to those with early-onset (before age 65) Alzheimer's Disease (EOAD).

Participants included 13 patients with bvFTD and their caregivers and 18 patients with EOAD and their caregivers. The caregivers consisted of a spouse, family member, or other informant who resided with the patient. They completed the informant-based Socioemotional Dysfunction Scale (SDS), a 40-item scale which rates common disturbances in social and emotional behavior on a five-point Likert scale (1-5). The patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with tensor-based morphometry (TBM) analysis of the 3D T1-weighted MRI scans. Computations of mean Jacobian values within select regions of interest (ROIs) in frontal and temporal lobes generated numerical summaries of regional volumes, and voxel-wise regressions created 3D statistical maps of the association between tissue volume and SDS total scores. Statistical analyses included independent samples t-tests group differences in ROIs and SDS scores, Pearson correlations between SDS scores and brain volumes, and multiple regression of ROIs with SDS scores and group as predictor variables.

Compared to the EOAD group, the bvFTD group had significantly higher SDS scores (p < .001; d = 2.24), smaller frontal lobe volumes (specifically dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex, p = .003; d = 1.24), and larger temporal lobe volumes (specifically hippocampus, p = .014; d = 0.979). Within the bvFTD group, higher SDS scores were associated with a smaller right anterior temporal lobe (ATL; p = .005; r = -.729), especially the lateral ATLs (p = .002; r = -.776), and a smaller bilateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC; p = .016; r = -.650). In contrast, within the EOAD group, higher SDS scores were associated with a smaller right parietal cortex (p = .030; r = .542). In the entire sample (both bvFTD and EOAD), higher SDS scores was associated with a smaller lateral ATL volumes (p = .019; r = -.431). Regression analyses confirmed that SDS score predicted lateral ATL volume (p = .041; b = -.262) after controlling for diagnosis (p < .001; b = -.692).

These findings are consistent with greater socioemotional dysfunction, smaller frontal, and larger mesial temporal regions in bvFTD, when compared to EOAD. The findings, however, suggest that positively disturbed socioemotional behavior in bvFTD, as reported by caregivers, results from involvement of the right temporal lobe and the lateral temporal region, with further contribution from disease in OFC. The association of SDS scores and ATL volume across diagnostic groups suggests that this region is instrumental in socioemotional functioning and that the SDS may have diagnostic value in distinguishing the "right-temporal variant" of bvFTD.

Previous research has found that trauma is a risk factor for developing early-onset psychosis (EOP), both exhibiting widespread structural abnormalities and social cognitive dysfunction (Hoy et al., 2012; Nair et al., 2020; Rotiker et al., 2018). However, few studies have investigated the association between trauma, neural architecture, and social behaviors. The current study examines whether trauma exposure moderates the association between cortical volume and thickness and social cognition in EOP.

T1-weighted whole-brain magnetic resonance data were acquired on a 3T Siemens scanner for 23 adolescents with EOP aged 12-21 years (M = 16.12), and 20 age-matched controls (M = 17.22). Cortical volume and thickness were calculated using the Freesurfer software suite (v5.3; Reuter et al., 2012). Based on prior research, bilateral structures of interest included the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), insula, precuneus, and superior frontal cortex. Social measures included the WebCNP Emotion Recognition (KER40) and Emotion Differentiation Test (MED36) accuracy score (Gur et al., 2010), The Awareness of Social Inference Test Total Score (TASIT; McDonald et al., 2003), and Social Responsiveness Scale, 2nd Edition (SRS-2; Constantino & Gruber, 2012). Trauma exposure was assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview Diagnostic (controls n = 5; EOP n = 9; First et al., 2015). Pearson’s correlations and independent t-tests were used to examine the relationship between cortical measurements and social cognition. Additionally, PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018) was used to examine if trauma history statistically moderated the relationship between cortical measurements and social cognition performance.

Significant group differences in SRS-2 scores were observed, as EOP participants scored 24.272 points higher than controls (t = 20.724, p < .001). Across both groups, there was a negative correlation between the SRS-2 score and precuneus volume (r = -.438, p = .011) and thickness (r = -.383, p = .028), TASIT total and superior frontal volume (r = -.349, p = .023), and KER40 and insular volume (r = -.437, p = .20). Further, the moderation analysis revealed that the relationships between precuneus volume and SRS-2 scores, precuneus thickness and MED36 scores, and rACC thickness and KER40 scores depended on experiencing trauma across both groups. Participants with trauma across groups had increased precuneus volume associated with higher SRS-2 scores (p = .0442). Experiencing trauma was also associated with lower precuneus cortical thickness and lower MED36 scores (p = .0172). Conversely, lack of trauma experience was associated with greater rACC thickness and higher KER40 scores (p = .0119).

Our findings indicate that past traumatic experiences may be a moderating factor in the relationship between atypical volume and thickness of social brain regions and social cognition. Overall, the significant interactions between trauma exposure and increased volume and thickness in both EOP and control participants were associated with increased impairment on social cognition measures. These findings emphasize the importance of accounting for the impact of early life adversities on brain development and how it may be relevant to social impairments, especially in individuals experiencing psychosis.