Social cognition in Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy

- Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME) has unfavorable social outcome.
- Social cognition, however, has remained largely untested.
- We assessed social cognition and cognitive performance in patients with JME.
- We found impaired social cognition, which may relate to poor social outcome.
- Neuro-cognitive testing pointed to fronto-temporal dysfunction.

ObjectiveJuvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME) is a common genetic generalized epilepsy syndrome. Several studies have detailed cognitive and imaging abnormalities pointing to frontal lobe dysfunction, as well as disadvantageous behavioral traits and poor social outcome, challenging the commonly held view of JME being a benign disorder. Social cognition is the ability to elaborate mental representations of social interactions and to use them correctly in social contexts, and includes Theory of Mind (ToM), which pertains to the attribution of cognitive and affective mental states to self and others and seems to rely on complex fronto-temporal interactions. ToM has been recently assessed in focal epilepsy syndromes, but little is available for generalized epilepsies.We performed a cross-sectional study to assess social cognition, with an emphasis on ToM, as well as standard cognitive functions in patients with JME.MethodWe recruited twenty JME patients and twenty matched controls. Tests used to assess social cognition and ToM included the Emotion Attribution Task, Strange Stories Task (SST), Faux Pas Task (FPT), Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task and Social Situation Task. Subjects were also assessed via an extensive neuropsychological battery.ResultsPatients exhibited worse performance in the SST and in several scores of the FPT. They also showed widespread cognitive impairment, involving executive functions, psychomotor speed, verbal and visuo-spatial memory.ConclusionsIn addition to cognitive impairment for fronto-temporal tasks, some features of social cognition are also altered in JME. The latter deficit may underlie the poor social outcome previously described for these patients, and might also relate to imaging findings of frontal lobe dysfunction.