Assessment of Social-emotional Functioning in Neurological Diseases (Emotion)

September 4, 2015 updated by: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Amiens

Assessment of Social-emotional Functioning in Stroke, Frontotemporal Dementia, Alzheimer and Parkinson Diseases

Empathy, defined as the ability to understand others emotions, is a fundamental concept in social interactions. It is a psychological phenomenon involving various separable components : (i) the ability to feel and imagine the emotions, (ii) the ability to adopt the perspective of other people. Several neurological diseases with behavioral disorders may lead to impaired processing of social and/or emotional informations. These pathologies are likely to induce a lack of empathy that may result from impairments at different levels.

The objective is simply to study how others' emotions are understood and how this allows for regulation of personal behavior. This study is being carried out among patients seen for various health problems and who can make behavior changes. This study could help to understand some neurological diseases and thereby to identify them earlier and/or to better differentiate them.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Empathy is a fundamental concept in social interactions, whose function is to understand the emotions felt by others. According to De Waal (2008), it is a multidimensional concept that involves two processes :(i) a system of emotional contagion or affective resonance (the unconscious and automatic sharing of the emotion of others) that establishes the emotional component of empathy, (ii) the ability to take perspective, that is the ability to imagine the subjective world of the other distinguishing oneself from him, forming the cognitive component of empathy.

Several neurological diseases with behavioral disorders may lead to impaired processing of social and/or emotional information. These pathologies are likely to induce a lack of empathy that may result from impairments at different levels.

The main objective of this study is to examine empathy in patients suffering from stroke (various locations with an emphasis on frontal stroke), Fronto-temporal dementia, Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases. The final assessment criterion is the overall score on the scale of empathy.

The patient will firstly receive a medical examination and clinical data are collected (past medical history, clinical neurological examination, diagnosis, description of first symptoms, course, current treatments)and brain imaging data. After checking inclusion criteria, information letter and the consent form will be returned.

The second visit will consist in neuropsychological assessment: general intellectual efficiency, perceptual and visual-constructive abilities, memory, executive and an assessment of behavior and mood from questionnaires The third and final visit will allow passing experimental tests. The experimental part will include the following tests: (1) recognition of emotional facial expressions; (2) tasks of theory of mind ; (3) task of empathy for pain.

A control group will also perform the neuropsychological and experimental tests.

The duration of the study participation for eligible patients and controls will vary according to the delay between each visit (medical, neuropsychological and experimental) and is lower than 3 months. The study will take place from June 2009 to June 2013.

  • Number of patients: 320
  • Number of controls: 400
  • Potential Benefits expected: criteria for early diagnosis and / or differential diagnosis based on the evaluation process of empathy; elaboration of new clinical tools assisting diagnosis.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

177

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • France
    • Picardie
      • Amiens, Picardie, France, 80000
        • CHU Amiens

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 85 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria (Controls):

  • being over 18 years old
  • speaking French
  • in good general health
  • affiliated to a welfare state
  • given their informed consent in writing

Inclusion Criteria (Patients):

  • 18 to 85 years old
  • French speaker
  • affiliated to a Welfare state
  • written consent
  • MMSE> 20
  • no alexia, agraphia or illiteracy
  • absence of diseases that can interfere with cognition (neoplasia, chronic alcoholism ...) of current or past neurological diseases other than those which justified the support nervous system (meningitis, encephalitis, brain injury, developmental disorders, deficits sensory or motor, epilepsy requiring treatment today ...), or of psychiatric disorder (except depression treated)

Exclusion Criteria (controls):

  • pathological MMSE score
  • insufficient acquisition of the alphabet
  • reading, writing, arithmetic
  • the presence of a visual deficit or hearing deficit disturbing the tests, paralysis of the dominant hand
  • the presence of brain pathology interfering, neurological or psychiatric history

Exclusion Criteria (Patients):

  • difficulties in reading, writing or illiteracy
  • diseases that can interfere with cognition (neoplasia, chronic alcoholism ...)
  • current or past neurological diseases other than those which justified the neurological consultation, Psychiatric pathology (except depression treated)

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Other: behavioral and physiological tests
Computerized tests and Electrophysiological measurements
Behavioral: Computerized tests and Electrophysiological measurements
  • Computerized tests: used to evaluate the empathy The participant observes a computer screen on which appears different types of images or words that can evoke an emotion. The participant responds by pressing the screen with his finger. This is a choice between several answers and respond as quickly as possible.
  • Electrophysiological measurements: provide a measure of autonomic response to emotional stimuli: galvanic response (GSR) and electromyographic activity (EMG) of facial muscles (corrugator supercilii and zygomatic major).
  • Neuropsychological assessment includes an assessment of intellectual efficiency, perceptual and visual-constructive abilities, memory, executive and an assessment of behavior and mood from questionnaires.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Empathy ability
Time Frame: 3 months
Empathy ability is a composite index associating performance on 3 tests (Facial emotion recognition, Theory of Mind and 'Faux pas')
3 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Empathy for pain
Time Frame: 3 months
pain rating on pictures when others are involved
3 months
pattern of empathy disorders according to the disease (stroke, Mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease
Time Frame: 3 months
3 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Amiens

Investigators

  • Study Chair: Olivier Godefroy, PhD-MD, CHU Amiens

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

June 1, 2009

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2013

Study Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 31, 2011

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 19, 2011

First Posted (Estimate)

April 20, 2011

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

September 7, 2015

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 4, 2015

Last Verified

September 1, 2015

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • PI09-PR-GODEFROY
  • 2009-A00596-51 (Other Identifier: CHU)

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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