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Hemispheric contributions toward interoception and emotion recognition in left-vs right-semantic dementia
Jessica L Hazelton1, Emma Devenney2, Rebekah Ahmed3
1The University of Sydney, School of Psychology, Sydney, NSW, Australia; The University of Sydney, Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Neuropsychologia
|June 22, 2023
Summary
Right-sided semantic dementia impairs interoception (body awareness) and emotion recognition. This suggests internal monitoring deficits drive emotional deficits, linked to right-hemisphere brain structures.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neurology
Background:
- Interoception (perception of internal bodily cues) and emotion recognition hemispheric contributions are unclear.
- Semantic dementia (SD) patients with left- or right-dominant atrophy show emotion recognition deficits, but interoception is less understood.
- Right-dominant SD (right-SD) was hypothesized to exhibit poorer interoception and emotion recognition due to atrophy in the right anterior temporal lobe.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate hemispheric differences in interoception and emotion recognition in semantic dementia.
- To determine if right-dominant atrophy in SD is associated with greater deficits in interoception and emotion recognition.
- To explore the neural correlates of interoception and emotion recognition in SD.
Main Methods:
- Thirty-five participants (8 left-SD, 6 right-SD, 21 controls) underwent a heartbeat detection task for interoception and an exteroception control task.
- Simultaneous electrocardiography (ECG) was used to assess interoception accuracy by comparing heartbeat events to participant responses.
- Emotion recognition was evaluated using the Facial Affect Selection Task, and voxel-based morphometry analyzed neural correlates.
Main Results:
- Right-SD patients demonstrated significantly worse interoception compared to controls and left-SD patients (p < 0.001).
- Both SD groups exhibited impaired emotion recognition versus controls, with right-SD showing greater deficits than left-SD (p = 0.003).
- Impaired interoception and right-SD predicted poorer emotion recognition, associated with right-lateralized brain regions (insula, temporal pole, thalamus, hippocampus).
Conclusions:
- This study provides the first evidence of impaired interoception in right-SD.
- Findings suggest that deficits in internal monitoring contribute to impaired emotion recognition in right-SD.
- A shared right-hemisphere neurobiological basis for interoception and emotion recognition was identified.
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