A 20-Year Systematic Review of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test across Neurodegenerative Conditions
Social cognition has a broad theoretical definition, which includes the ability to mentalise, i.e., recognise and infer mental states to explain and predict another’s behaviour. There is growing recognition of the clinical, diagnostic, and prognostic value of assessing a person’s ability to perform...
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| Format: | Article |
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MDPI AG
2023-08-01
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/13/9/1268 |
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| author | Owen Stafford Christina Gleeson Ciara Egan Conall Tunney Brendan Rooney Fiadhnait O’Keeffe Garret McDermott Simon Baron-Cohen Tom Burke |
| author_facet | Owen Stafford Christina Gleeson Ciara Egan Conall Tunney Brendan Rooney Fiadhnait O’Keeffe Garret McDermott Simon Baron-Cohen Tom Burke |
| author_sort | Owen Stafford |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Social cognition has a broad theoretical definition, which includes the ability to mentalise, i.e., recognise and infer mental states to explain and predict another’s behaviour. There is growing recognition of the clinical, diagnostic, and prognostic value of assessing a person’s ability to perform social cognitive tasks, particularly aspects of theory of mind, such as mentalising. One such measure of mentalising is the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test (RMET). This systematic review and meta-analysis consider performance on the RMET, applied to people with neurodegenerative conditions in matched control studies, since its publication in 2001. Overall, this review includes 22 papers with data from N = 800 participants with neurodegenerative conditions: Alzheimer’s disease, <i>n</i> = 31; Parkinson’s disease, <i>n</i> = 221; Lewy body dementia, <i>n</i> = 33; motor neuron disease, <i>n</i> = 218; Huntington’s disease <i>n</i> = 80; multiple sclerosis, <i>n</i> = 217; and N = 601 matched typical controls. Our meta-analyses show that deficits in mentalising, as measured by the RMET, are consistently reported across neurodegenerative conditions, with participants in both early and late disease stages being affected. Social cognition is an emerging field of cognitive neuroscience requiring specific and sensitive measurement across each subdomain. Adult-based meta-normative data feature, for which future groups or individuals could be compared against, and hypotheses relating to the source of these mentalising deficits are further discussed. This review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020182874). |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T22:59:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6472c8b08c114d1c9021b8cf4c3d2a03 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3425 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T22:59:19Z |
| publishDate | 2023-08-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Brain Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-6472c8b08c114d1c9021b8cf4c3d2a032023-11-19T09:48:35ZengMDPI AGBrain Sciences2076-34252023-08-01139126810.3390/brainsci13091268A 20-Year Systematic Review of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test across Neurodegenerative ConditionsOwen Stafford0Christina Gleeson1Ciara Egan2Conall Tunney3Brendan Rooney4Fiadhnait O’Keeffe5Garret McDermott6Simon Baron-Cohen7Tom Burke8School of Psychology, University College Dublin, D04 F6X4 Dublin, IrelandSchool of Psychology, University of Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, IrelandSchool of Psychology, University of Galway, H91 TK33 Galway, IrelandAcquired Brain Injury Ireland, Meath Services, Dublin, IrelandSchool of Psychology, University College Dublin, D04 F6X4 Dublin, IrelandSchool of Psychology, University College Dublin, D04 F6X4 Dublin, IrelandDepartment of Psychology, Tallaght University Hospital, D24 NR0A Dublin, IrelandAutism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB2 8AH, UKSchool of Psychology, University College Dublin, D04 F6X4 Dublin, IrelandSocial cognition has a broad theoretical definition, which includes the ability to mentalise, i.e., recognise and infer mental states to explain and predict another’s behaviour. There is growing recognition of the clinical, diagnostic, and prognostic value of assessing a person’s ability to perform social cognitive tasks, particularly aspects of theory of mind, such as mentalising. One such measure of mentalising is the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test (RMET). This systematic review and meta-analysis consider performance on the RMET, applied to people with neurodegenerative conditions in matched control studies, since its publication in 2001. Overall, this review includes 22 papers with data from N = 800 participants with neurodegenerative conditions: Alzheimer’s disease, <i>n</i> = 31; Parkinson’s disease, <i>n</i> = 221; Lewy body dementia, <i>n</i> = 33; motor neuron disease, <i>n</i> = 218; Huntington’s disease <i>n</i> = 80; multiple sclerosis, <i>n</i> = 217; and N = 601 matched typical controls. Our meta-analyses show that deficits in mentalising, as measured by the RMET, are consistently reported across neurodegenerative conditions, with participants in both early and late disease stages being affected. Social cognition is an emerging field of cognitive neuroscience requiring specific and sensitive measurement across each subdomain. Adult-based meta-normative data feature, for which future groups or individuals could be compared against, and hypotheses relating to the source of these mentalising deficits are further discussed. This review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020182874).https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/13/9/1268social cognitionneurodegenerative diseasesthe ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ testHuntington’s diseasemotor neuron diseasemultiple sclerosis |
| spellingShingle | Owen Stafford Christina Gleeson Ciara Egan Conall Tunney Brendan Rooney Fiadhnait O’Keeffe Garret McDermott Simon Baron-Cohen Tom Burke A 20-Year Systematic Review of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test across Neurodegenerative Conditions Brain Sciences social cognition neurodegenerative diseases the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test Huntington’s disease motor neuron disease multiple sclerosis |
| title | A 20-Year Systematic Review of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test across Neurodegenerative Conditions |
| title_full | A 20-Year Systematic Review of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test across Neurodegenerative Conditions |
| title_fullStr | A 20-Year Systematic Review of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test across Neurodegenerative Conditions |
| title_full_unstemmed | A 20-Year Systematic Review of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test across Neurodegenerative Conditions |
| title_short | A 20-Year Systematic Review of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test across Neurodegenerative Conditions |
| title_sort | 20 year systematic review of the reading the mind in the eyes test across neurodegenerative conditions |
| topic | social cognition neurodegenerative diseases the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test Huntington’s disease motor neuron disease multiple sclerosis |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/13/9/1268 |
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