Relationship Between Emotion Recognition and Cognition in Multiple Sclerosis: A Meta-analysis Protocol

Béatrice Degraeve (1, 2, 3) , Audrey Henry (4) , Bruno Lenne (2, 5, 1)

1 ETHICS EA 7446 - Experience ; Technology & Human Interactions ; Care & Society :
2 UCL - Université catholique de Lille
3 UCL FLSH - Université catholique de Lille - Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines
4 C2S - Cognition, Santé, Société
5 Hôpital Saint Vincent de Paul de Lille

Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system characterized by a broad and unpredictable range of symptoms, including cognitive and socio-cognitive dysfunction. Alongside the well-known deficits in information processing speed, executive functioning and episodic memory, recent evidence also highlighted socio-cognitive impairments in MS, such as emotion-recognition deficits. Recently, several studies investigated the association between emotion-recognition and cognitive impairment to assess whether social cognition is parallel to (or even dependent on) general cognitive dysfunction. Yet, there have been inconsistent findings, raising the need for a meta-analysis of the literature. Objectives: The aim of the present paper is to outine the protocol for an upcoming meta-analysis we designed to clarify these conclusions. Methods and analysis: We plan to estimate combined effect sizes for the association between emotion-recognition and cognitive impairment in MS across 3 cognitive domains (information processing speed, executive functions and episodic memory) and 7 emotion scores of interests (total and by 6-basic emotions sub-scores). Further, we plan to investigate whether identified variables are the cause for heterogeneity in any combined association. To that end, we will conduct additional meta-regression analyses to explore whether overall correlations differ according to clinical characteristics of MS-patients (i.e., disease duration, MS-phenotype, severity of depression and disability). Ultimately, this study will provide support either for an association of these disorders (in which emotion-recognition deficits might result from more fundamental cognitive dysfunction), or for two distinct sets of symptoms which may occur independently, for targeted patient profiles.

Mots clés: meta-analysis; cognitive impairment; social cognition; Multiple sclerosis; emotion recognition

Domaines: Psychologie; Neurosciences

Béatrice Degraeve, Audrey Henry, Bruno Lenne. Relationship Between Emotion Recognition and Cognition in Multiple Sclerosis: A Meta-analysis Protocol. BMJ Neurology Open, 2024. ⟨hal-04276821⟩