Inability to recognise disgust as first cognitive symptom of ALS

A study in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients without cognitive/behavioural symptoms demonstrated an impaired ability to correctly recognise disgust, suggesting that this could be the first emotion to be hit in ALS cognitive decline. Basal ganglia could play a role in the altered processing of disgust.

Ms Veronica Castelnovo (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Italy) and colleagues aimed to verify the hypothesis that in ALS, the impairment in detecting disgust is related with the integrity of subcortical structures [1]. To do this, 20 ALS patients without cognitive/behavioural symptoms and 52 matched healthy controls underwent MRI and a neuropsychological assessment, which included the Comprehensive Affect Testing System (CATS), evaluating emotion recognition. In ALS patients, significant CATS findings were then correlated with subcortical volumes, Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen (ECAS) performance, patients’ mood, and behaviour.

Compared with healthy controls, ALS patients had significantly worse CATS outcomes in general, and were significantly less able to recognise disgust in particular. In ALS patients, a low performance in the ability to recognise disgust was associated with a reduced volume of the left pallidum and with unfavourable ECAS performance. There were no grey matter volume differences apparent between ALS patients and controls. The authors concluded that these results offer new potential markers for monitoring extra-motor progression in ALS.

1. Castelnovo V, et al. Impaired recognition of disgust is related to subcortical volume loss in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. OPR-002, EAN 2021 Virtual Congress, 19–22 June.

 

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Posted on 18 August 202122 February 2024