Recognition and perception of emotions in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.

Objective: Perception and recognition of emotions are fundamental prerequisites of human life. Patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) may have emotional and behavioral impairments that might influence socially desirable interactions. We aimed to investigate perception and recognition of emotions in patients with JME by means of neuropsychological tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

A comparative study of social cognition in epilepsy, brain injury, and Parkinson's disease.

The brain regions involved in social cognition and the regulation of social behavior form a widely distributed cortico-subcortical network. Therefore, many neurological disorders could affect social cognition and behavior. A persistent lack of valid tests and a rigid neuropsychological focus on language, attention, executive function, and memory have contributed to a long-standing neglect of social cognition in clinical diagnostics, although the DSM-5 recognizes it as one of the six core dimensions in neurocognitive disorders.

Digitally Assisted Standard Diagnostics in Insurance Medicine (DASDIM): psychometric data in psychiatric work disability evaluations.

Purpose: Insurers often commission psychiatric experts to evaluate the eligibility of workers with mental disorders for disability benefits, by estimating their residual work capacity (RWC). We investigated the validity of a standardized, computer-based battery of established diagnostic instruments, for evaluating the personality, cognition, performance, symptom burden, and symptom validity of claimants.

Methods: One hundred and fifty-three claimants for benefits were assessed by the assembled test battery, which was applied in addition to a conventional clinical work disability evaluation.

Emotional Recognition in Patients With Mesial Temporal Epilepsy Associated With Enlarged Amygdala.

Background: Amygdalae play a central role in emotional processing by interconnecting frontal cortex and other brain structures. Unilateral amygdala enlargement (AE) is associated with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE). In a relatively large sample of patients with mTLE and AE, we aimed to evaluate functional integration of AE in emotion processing and to determine possible associations between fMRI activation patterns in amygdala and deficits in emotion recognition as assessed by neuropsychological testing.

The Effects of Dynamic and Static Emotional Facial Expressions of Humans and Their Avatars on the EEG: An ERP and ERD/ERS Study.

This study aimed to examine whether the cortical processing of emotional faces is modulated by the computerization of face stimuli ("avatars") in a group of 25 healthy participants. Subjects were passively viewing 128 static and dynamic facial expressions of female and male actors and their respective avatars in neutral or fearful conditions. Event-related potentials (ERPs), as well as alpha and theta event-related synchronization and desynchronization (ERD/ERS), were derived from the EEG that was recorded during the task.

Temporal lobe epilepsy alters neural responses to human and avatar facial expressions in the face perception network.

Background And Objective: Although avatars are now widely used in advertisement, entertainment, and business today, no study has investigated whether brain lesions in neurological patients interfere with brain activation in response to dynamic avatar facial expressions. The aim of our event-related fMRI study was to compare brain activation differences in people with epilepsy and controls during the processing of fearful and neutral dynamic expressions displayed by human or avatar faces.

Methods: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined brain responses to dynamic facial expressions of trained actors and their avatar look-alikes in 16 people with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and 26 controls.

Dataset of spiking and LFP activity invasively recorded in the human amygdala during aversive dynamic stimuli.

We present an electrophysiological dataset collected from the amygdalae of nine participants attending a visual dynamic stimulation of emotional aversive content. The participants were patients affected by epilepsy who underwent preoperative invasive monitoring in the mesial temporal lobe. Participants were presented with dynamic visual sequences of fearful faces (aversive condition), interleaved with sequences of neutral landscapes (neutral condition).

Neuro-aesthetics and the iconography in photography.

Can neurosciences explain art? No, but it can help us to understand why some images are more memorable and, thus, more successful than others. This article aims to identify certain factors that may influence the artistic success of photographic images. These factors are discussed within the contexts of basic neuropsychological concepts, visual perception, and visual memory.

Safety of the paramedian supracerebellar-transtentorial approach for selective amygdalohippocampectomy.

Objective: The goal of this study was to assess the reproducibility and safety of the recently introduced paramedian supracerebellar-transtentorial (PST) approach for selective amygdalohippocampectomy (SA).

Methods: The authors performed a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data originating from their surgical register of patients undergoing SA via a PST approach for lesional medial temporal lobe epilepsy. All patients received thorough pre- and postoperative clinical (neurological, neuropsychological, psychiatric) and instrumental (ictal and long-term EEG, invasive EEG if needed, MRI) workup.

Dynamic human and avatar facial expressions elicit differential brain responses.

Computer-generated characters, so-called avatars, are widely used in advertising, entertainment, human-computer interaction or as research tools to investigate human emotion perception. However, brain responses to avatar and human faces have scarcely been studied to date. As such, it remains unclear whether dynamic facial expressions of avatars evoke different brain responses than dynamic facial expressions of humans.

The relation between neuronal firing, local field potentials and hemodynamic activity in the human amygdala in response to aversive dynamic visual stimuli.

The amygdala is a central part of networks of brain regions underlying perception and cognition, in particular related to processing of emotionally salient stimuli. Invasive electrophysiological and hemodynamic measurements are commonly used to evaluate functions of the human amygdala, but a comprehensive understanding of their relation is still lacking. Here, we aimed at investigating the link between fast and slow frequency amygdalar oscillations, neuronal firing and hemodynamic responses.

Impaired Social Cognition in Epilepsy: A Review of What We Have Learnt From Neuroimaging Studies.

Social cognition refers to specific mental processes that subserve social interaction. Impaired social cognition has been increasingly reported in patients with epilepsy and negatively affects overall quality of life (QOL). In this article, we will review neuroimaging studies of social cognition in people with epilepsy.

Dynamics and diversity of heart rate responses to a disaster motion picture.

Emotions are dynamic neuropsychophysiological processes that guide behavior and serve as crucial signals during social interactions. Measuring their highly individual temporal dynamics is an unresolved challenge, but the coupling of autonomic and central nervous processes offers a promising approach. We present a feasible approach to study changes in heart rate during emotions and demonstrate a link to empathy.

Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy diminishes functional connectivity during emotion perception.

Objectives: Unilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) has been associated with impaired recognition of emotional facial expressions. Correspondingly, imaging studies showed decreased activity of the amygdala and cortical face processing regions in response to emotional faces. However, functional connectivity among regions involved in emotion perception has not been studied so far.

Left or right? Lateralizing temporal lobe epilepsy by dynamic amygdala fMRI.

Objectives: In this case series, the findings of 85 functional MRI studies employing a dynamic fearful face paradigm are reported. Previous findings have shown the paradigm to generate bilateral amygdala activations in healthy subjects and unilateral activations in patients with MTLE, in the contralateral hemisphere to seizure origin. Such findings suggest ipsilateral limbic pathology and offer collateral evidence in lateralizing MTLE.

Why epilepsy challenges social life.

Social bonds are at the center of our daily living and are an essential determinant of our quality of life. In people with epilepsy, numerous factors can impede cognitive and affective functions necessary for smooth social interactions. Psychological and psychiatric complications are common in epilepsy and may hinder the processing of social information.

Right fronto-limbic atrophy is associated with reduced empathy in refractory unilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy.

Refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is the most frequent focal epilepsy and is often accompanied by deficits in social cognition including emotion recognition, theory of mind, and empathy. Consistent with the neuronal networks that are crucial for normal social-cognitive processing, these impairments have been associated with functional changes in fronto-temporal regions. However, although atrophy in unilateral MTLE also affects regions of the temporal and frontal lobes that underlie social cognition, little is known about the structural correlates of social-cognitive deficits in refractory MTLE.

Quality of life is social--towards an improvement of social abilities in patients with epilepsy.

Quality of life (QoL) for people with epilepsy is considered worse than the condition's clinical and medical prognosis would predict. Quantity and quality of social interaction considerably determine QoL. Research shows that a significant proportion of patients with epilepsy experience difficulties with social functioning that is thought to be related to impaired QoL.

Right mesial temporal lobe epilepsy impairs empathy-related brain responses to dynamic fearful faces.

Unilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) has been associated with reduced amygdala responsiveness to fearful faces. However, the effect of unilateral MTLE on empathy-related brain responses in extra-amygdalar regions has not been investigated. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we measured empathy-related brain responses to dynamic fearful faces in 34 patients with unilateral MTLE (18 right sided), in an epilepsy (extra-MTLE; n = 16) and in a healthy control group (n = 30).

Nonvisual spatial navigation fMRI lateralizes mesial temporal lobe epilepsy in a patient with congenital blindness.

Nonvisual spatial navigation functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may help clinicians determine memory lateralization in blind individuals with refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). We report on an exceptional case of a congenitally blind woman with late-onset left MTLE undergoing presurgical memory fMRI. To activate mesial temporal structures despite the lack of visual memory, the patient was requested to recall familiar routes using nonvisual multisensory and verbal cues.

Alterations in functional connectivity of the amygdala in unilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy.

The aim of this work was to evaluate the relationship between ipsilateral amygdala dysfunction in unilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) and remote temporal, frontal, and parietal brain structures and to identify their association with theory of mind (ToM) abilities. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired from MTLE patients with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis (n = 28; 16 left-sided) and healthy controls (HC, n = 18) watching an animated fearful face paradigm. To explore functional connectivity, we used independent component analysis (ICA) of fMRI data to characterize possible amygdala network alterations that may be caused by lateralized amygdala dysfunction.

"Tell me how do I feel"--emotion recognition and theory of mind in symptomatic mesial temporal lobe epilepsy.

Specific interictal personality characteristics in epilepsy, sometimes referred to as "Waxman-Geschwind Syndrome", have been recognized for centuries and extensively described. Despite the persevering clinical impression that patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsies (MTLE) suffer from problems in communication and interpersonal relations, uncertainties and controversies remain as to the precise origin of these psychosocial difficulties. Here, we investigated social-cognitive and decision-making abilities using a set of tasks that combine behavioural and psychological measures of social and emotional variables to answer the question of whether patients with MTLE are specifically impaired in social cognition compared to both an epilepsy and a healthy control group.

Body weight and the reward system: the volume of the right amygdala may be associated with body mass index in young overweight men.

We aimed to investigate the relationship between BMI (body mass index) and the volumes of the structures of the reward system (hippocampus, amygdala, accumbens, caudatum, putamen, and orbitofrontal cortex). The right and left structures were examined separately. Their volumes were assessed using a 3-T MRI scanner and Freesurfer software.