Open AccessFacial emotional processing deficits in long‐term HIV‐suppressed patients
Author(s) -
GonzalezBaeza Alicia,
PerezValero Ignacio,
CarvajalMolina Fernando,
Bayon Carmen,
MontesRamirez Marisa,
Ignacio Bernardino Jose,
Arribas Jose R
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of the international aids society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.724
H-Index - 62
ISSN - 1758-2652
DOI - 10.7448/ias.17.4.19664
Subject(s) - sadness , neurocognitive , anger , medicine , affect (linguistics) , neuropsychology , audiology , clinical psychology , psychology , psychiatry , cognition , communication
Introduction Emotional processing is basic for social behaviour. We examine for the first time the facial emotion processing in long‐term HIV‐suppressed patients. Materials and Methods Cross‐sectional study comparing (ANOVA) six facial emotional processing tasks (two discrimination, two memory and two recognition) between HIV‐suppressed patients (HIV+) on effective antiretroviral therapy (>2 years) and matched (age, gender) healthy controls (HCs). Accuracy in the recognition of basic emotions (neutral, happiness, sadness, anger and fear) in each recognition task was also compared (Mann–Whitney U test) between HIV+ and HCs. In the subset of HIV+, we evaluate which factors were associated with impaired recognition of basic emotions (accuracy below 50%) by multiple logistic regression analysis. Overall performance in all six emotional tasks were separately compared between neurocognitive impaired and non‐impaired HIV+. Results We included 107 HIV+, mainly Caucasian (89%) male (72%) with a mean age of 47.4 years, neurocognitively non‐impaired (75.5%), and 40 HCs. Overall discrimination (p=0.38), memory (p=0.65) and recognition tasks (p=0.29) were similar in both groups. However, HIV+ had lower sadness recognition in both recognition tasks and lower sadness, anger and fear recognition in the facial affect selection task (Figure 1). Only estimated pre‐morbid functioning (WAIS‐III‐R vocabulary subtest score) was significantly associated with sadness (1.99 [95% CI 1.18–3.58]; p=0.01) and anger recognition deficits (2.06 [95% CI 1.14–3.45]; p=0.015) in the facial affect selection task. In HIV+ individuals, neurocognitive impairment was associated with worse memory task results (p<0.01, d=0.88; p<0.01, d=1.48). Conclusions We did not find difference in the overall emotion processing between HIV+ and HIV‐ individuals. However, we found particular recognition deficits in the entire HIV+ sample. Estimated pre‐morbid functioning was associated with sadness and anger recognition deficits in the facial affect selection task. Neurocognitive impaired HIV+ had additional memory deficits. These recognition deficits might conduct to social difficulties.