Changes in facial expressions can distinguish Parkinson's disease via Bayesian inference

We aimed to clarify the influence of facial expressions on providing early recognition and diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD).

We included 18 people with PD and 18 controls. The participants were asked to perform 12 monosyllabic tests, 8 disyllabic tests, and 6 multisyllabic tests and the whole process were recorded. Then 26 video clips recorded were used to decipher the facial muscle movements and face expression via Noldus FaceReader 7.0 software. 16 suitable variables were selected to construct a Bayesian network model.

The area under the curve of the unsegmented-syllabic, monosyllabic, dissyllabic, and multisyllabic training models was 0.960, 0.958, and 0.962, respectively, with no significant difference between the models. Based on the Bayesian network models, we found that except for valence in the disyllabic model, all positive facial expressions in the four models are negatively associated with the probability of PD. Moreover, negative facial expressions, including sadness, anger, scared, and disgust in the unsegmented-syllabic, monosyllabic, and multisyllabic models, as well as anger in the disyllabic model, are positively correlated to the probability of PD. Sadness, scare and disgust in disyllabic model are negatively associated with the probability of PD.

Except for sad, scared, and disgusted generated by reading disyllables, negative expressions generated by reading other syllables were positively associated with the probability of PD. In addition, scared expressions produced during monosyllabic reading had the greatest effect on the probability of PD, and disgusted expressions produced during multisyllabic reading had the least effect.