OBJECTIVES Deficits in facial emotion recognition and Theory of Mind are frequent in patients with epilepsy. Although this evidence, studies on pediatric age are few and the relation between these abilities and other cognitive domain remains to be better elucidated. The purpose of our study is to evaluate facial emotion recognition and Theory of Mind in children and adolescents with focal epilepsy, and correlate them with intelligence and executive functions. MATERIALS AND METHODS Our work is a cross-sectional observational study. Sixty-two children and adolescents aged between 7-16 years diagnosed by focal epilepsy and 32 sex/age-matched controls were recruited. All participants were administered a standardized battery tests to assess social cognition (NEPSY-II), executive functions (EpiTrack Junior) and cognitive non-verbal level (Raven Progressive Matrices). RESULTS Emotion recognition mean score was significantly lower in the epilepsy group than in the controls to Student's t-test (p<0.05). Epilepsy group showed an impairment in happiness, sadness, anger and fear recognition, compared to controls (p<0.05). Theory of Mind mean score was also significantly lower in epilepsy group than controls (p<0.05). Deficits in emotion recognition seemed to be related to low age at onset of epilepsy, long duration of disease, low executive functions and low non-verbal intelligence. Deficits in Theory of Mind seemed to be related to a high seizure frequency. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that children and adolescents with focal epilepsy had deficit in facial emotion recognition and Theory of Mind, compared to their peer. Both these difficulties seem to be related to some features of epilepsy itself. Our results also suggest that deficits in facial emotion recognition are potentially related to difficulties in executive functions and non-verbal intelligence. More studies are needed to confirm these hypotheses.

中文翻译：

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儿童和青少年局灶性癫痫的社会认知和执行功能

目的 面部情绪识别和心理理论缺陷在癫痫患者中很常见。尽管这一证据，对儿科年龄的研究很少，而且这些能力与其他认知领域之间的关系仍有待更好地阐明。我们研究的目的是评估局灶性癫痫儿童和青少年的面部情绪识别和心理理论，并将它们与智力和执行功能相关联。材料和方法 我们的工作是一项横断面观察性研究。招募了 62 名 7-16 岁被诊断为局灶性癫痫的儿童和青少年和 32 名性别/年龄匹配的对照。所有参与者都接受了标准化的电池测试以评估社会认知（NEPSY-II），执行功能（EpiTrack Junior）和认知非语言水平（Raven Progressive Matrices）。结果 通过Student's t-检验，癫痫组的情绪识别平均得分显着低于对照组（p<0.05）。与对照组相比，癫痫组在快乐、悲伤、愤怒和恐惧识别方面表现出障碍（p<0.05）。癫痫组的心理理论平均得分也显着低于对照组（p<0.05）。情绪识别的缺陷似乎与癫痫发病年龄低、疾病持续时间长、执行功能低下和非语言智力低下有关。心智理论的缺陷似乎与高发作频率有关。结论 我们的结果表明，患有局灶性癫痫的儿童和青少年在面部情绪识别和心理理论方面存在缺陷，与他们的同龄人相比。这两种困难似乎都与癫痫本身的某些特征有关。我们的研究结果还表明，面部情绪识别的缺陷可能与执行功能和非语言智力的困难有关。需要更多的研究来证实这些假设。