Comparison of theory of mind, facial emotion and face recognition, empathy and alexithymia levels and executive functions in patients with mild cognitive impairment and parkinson's disease and healthy controls

Comparison of theory of mind, facial emotion and face recognition, empathy and alexithymia levels and executive functions in patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Parkinson's Disease and healthy controls Objective: The aim of this study is to compare patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Parkinson's Disease in terms of executive functions, theory of mind, emotion and face recognition, alexithymia and empathy with each other and healthy controls and also to examine which of these factors are more closely related. Materials and Methods: The study included 30 patients with Parkinson's Disease, 30 patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and a healthy control group consisting of 30 healthy individuals matched for age, gender and education. The patient groups and the healthy control group were first given the sociodemographic data form, followed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Basic Empathy Scale, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Afterwards, Mini-Mental State Exam, Neuropsychiatric Inventory, Benton Face Recognition Test, Stroop Test, Dokuz Eylul Theory of Mind Scale, Reading Mind from Eyes Test, Ekman Facial Expression Recognition Test were applied to all groups. Results: First Degree False Belief, Irony Comprehension, Metaphor Comprehension skills of patients with Parkinson's disease are more impaired than patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment; Stroop1 error, Stroop3 duration, HAD scores and irritability were found to be higher. Minimental and Benton total test scores of patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment were lower than patients with Parkinson's Disease; Stroop4 error was found to be higher. Compared to healthy controls, both groups of patients had lower scores on Second Degree False Belief, total RMET, Ekman's surprised, disgusted, and neutral emotions; TAS total test scores, Stroop4 time and correction, Stroop5 time, error and correction and apathy values were found to be high. There was no significant difference in BES test scores compared to healthy controls. The correlation analyses, it was found that DETMS, RMET, Ekman and Benton test scores were associated with Stroop, HAD, TAS and BES scores in patients with Parkinson's Disease; it has been shown that social cognition is impaired in depressive, anxious and alexithymic patients and patients with cognitive impairment. In patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment, DETMS, RMET and Ekman Test Scores were associated with Stroop, TAS and BES test scores; it has been shown that social cognition is impaired in alexithymic patients and patients with cognitive impairment. Conclusion: This cross-sectional, prospective and controlled study is the first study we can see in the Turkish and English literature in which patients with Parkinson's Disease and Mild Cognitive Disorder were compared in terms of theory of mind, emotion and face recognition, empathy and alexithymia levels, and executive functions and related factors were investigated. Our findings showed that the total RMET score and patient groups were predictors of the First and Second Degree False Beliefs test. Mini-Mental total score and RMET total score were found as predictors of the Benton test. Our findings expand the existing data on factors affecting social cognition in neurodegenerative diseases, which are very important for the development of preventive and therapeutic strategies that can potentially reduce neuropsychiatric symptoms secondary to impairments in social interaction in the Turkish population. Key words: Parkinson's Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, social cognition, empathy, alexithymia