Objective: To examine the usefulness of the joint assessment of syntactic and socio-emotional processing in the discrimination and classification of early Parkinson´s disease (PD) patients and controls, and PD patients in ‘on’ and ‘off’ medication state (PD-on and PD-off, respectively).

Background: Syntactic and socio-emotional processing tasks have shown to be sensitive tools to tap the integrity of frontostriatal circuits (1-3). However, and despite the recent calls for multidimensional assessments in neurological conditions, no study has yet explored whether PD patient discrimination and classification can be improved through the joint evaluation of both domains.

Method: First, we compared the performance of 31 PD patients vs 24 controls, and 15 PD-on vs 16 PD-off patients on two syntactic processing tests (Touching A with B and the Embedded Sentences subtests of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination), and on an experimental task triggering Schadenfreudeand envy. Second, we performed multiple group discriminant function analyses (MDA) and two receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) curves to determine which of the measures showing between-group differences best discriminate between (a) PD patients and controls, and (b) PD-on and PD-off patients.

Results: PD patients reported lower scores on the Touching A with B subtest and Schadenfreude ratings than controls. PD-off patients showed marginally lower performance on the Touching A with B subtest and Schadenfreuderatings compared to PD-on patients. No differences were found between PD patients and controls, neither PD-on and PD-off patients in the Embedded Sentences subtest, envy or neutral situations ratings. While Touching A with B discriminated most reliably between PD patients and controls, Schadenfreuderatings best distinguished between PD-on and PD-off patients. The average of both showed the best discriminatory accuracy between PD patients and controls, and PD-on and PD-off patients, reaching a sensitivity of 75% and a specificity of 80.7% at a cut-off of 8.3 points in the former classification, and a sensitivity of 62.5% and a specificity of 66.7% at a cut-off of 7.5 points in the latter one.

Conclusion: This study nurtures a rising trend highlighting the potential benefits of multidimensional cognitive assessments for the characterization and identification of early PD patients.

References: 1. Baez S, Pino M, Berrio M, Santamaria-Garcia H, Sedeno L, Garcia AM, et al. Corticostriatal signatures of schadenfreude: evidence from Huntington’s disease. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2018;89(1):112-6. 2. Baez S, Santamaria-Garcia H, Orozco J, Fittipaldi S, Garcia AM, Pino M, et al. Your misery is no longer my pleasure: Reduced schadenfreude in Huntington’s disease families. Cortex. 2016;83:78-85. 3. Birba A, Garcia-Cordero I, Kozono G, Legaz A, Ibanez A, Sedeno L, et al. Losing ground: Frontostriatal atrophy disrupts language embodiment in Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews. 2017;80:673-87.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/cognitive-multi-domain-assessment-in-parkinsons-disease-a-more-sensitive-approach/