Disgust in pre-clinical Huntington's disease: a longitudinal study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Genetics
• Psychology

Background:

• Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder.
• Early detection and understanding of HD's impact on cognitive functions are crucial.
• Emotion recognition deficits may serve as an early biomarker for HD gene carriers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate emotion recognition (facial and vocal) and emotional experience in individuals at risk for Huntington's disease.
• To determine if deficits in emotion processing are an early indicator of carrying the HD gene.
• To assess the time course of potential emotion recognition impairments over 12 months.

Main Methods:

• Assessed emotion recognition (facial, vocal) and emotional experience in at-risk individuals before and after genetic testing.
• Grouped participants into HD gene carriers (HD+) and non-carriers (HD-) based on DNA tests.
• Utilized a healthy control group to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to deficits.

Main Results:

• The HD+ group exhibited significantly impaired recognition of facial expressions of disgust across all assessments.
• Recognition of vocal emotions and the subjective experience of emotions were largely unaffected in the HD+ group.
• Deficits in facial emotion recognition were identified as an early correlate of carrying the HD gene.

Conclusions:

• Impaired recognition of facial disgust is an early sign associated with carrying the Huntington's disease gene.
• Vocal emotion recognition and emotional experience appear to be less affected in the early stages of HD gene carriage.
• These findings highlight the potential of facial emotion recognition deficits as an early biomarker for Huntington's disease.