Investigation of social cognition in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy using a video-based real life scenario: Pilot findings

With this research, it is aimed to analyse whether there is any deterioration in the social cognition levels of individuals with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and the level of quality of life. The research consists of 17 cases diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and followed by Dr.Lecturer Demet Aygün from Atlas University Medicine Hospital and 17 control groups with age, gender and education level matching. The study included 34 participants with an average age of 37.5 years. Seventeen of the participants were female (50%) and 17 (50%) were male. Ten of the participants (29.41%) were undergraduate graduates, 22 (64.70%) were high school graduates and 2 (5.88%) were secondary school graduates. Temporal lobe epilepsy causes impairments in the social cognitive functions of individuals, leading to impairments in empathy skills, inference making skills and cognition. These impairments are reflected in language skills. In order to evaluate the impairments in language skills, we compared how often individuals with TLE and healthy individuals used internal state terms. The individuals were shown the Real Life Scenario video with the theme of bride, sister-in-law and groom prepared beforehand and asked questions about it and the answers were transcribed. According to the transcript results, there is a significant difference between the number of cognitive terms and the number of emotional terms in the answers given to the social cognition questions of individuals with TLE and healthy individuals. (p=0,005<0,05), (p=0,001<0,05) There is no significant difference between the number of metaphorical terms in the answers given to the social cognition questions of individuals with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and healthy individuals. (p=0,261>0,05) Addenbrook Cognitive Battery was applied to examine whether cognition was affected in individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy. A significant difference was found when Addenbrook scores of individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy and healthy individuals were compared (p=0.001<0.05). According to the results given in the transcribed answers, it was observed that TLE individuals produced fewer cognitive terms and emotional terms than healthy individuals. The mean number of metaphors was very close to each other and no significant difference was found. In accordance with the studies in the literature, it was observed that cognition and consequently affective and cognitive empathy were impaired in individuals with TLE. Keywords: Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe, Social Cognition, Language, Affective Empathy, Cognitive Empathy