Neuropsychiatric Symptoms of Epilepsy

Chapter 11
Emotion Recognition
Stefano Meletti
Abstract The recognition of emotional signals from all sensory modalities is a
critical component of human social interactions. It is through the understanding of
the affective states of others that we can guide our own behavioral responses.
Notably, facial expression provides the greatest amount of emotional cues that are
useful in recognizing emotions, such as joy, anger, and fear. The temporal lobe – and
the amygdala in particular – plays a crucial role in processing the appropriate autonomic
and behavioral responses to relevant emotional stimuli. Only in the past
decade, however, the role played by the antero-medial temporal lobe region has
been demonstrated in decoding the emotions, mental states, and beliefs of others. In
the field of epilepsy, this knowledge has several clinical, as well as speculative,
implications. Indeed, temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common type of
focal epilepsy. It is frequently characterized by lesions or gliosis/atrophy (hippocampal
sclerosis) involving the medial temporal lobe region, and antero-medial
temporal lobe resection is the standard treatment for drug-resistant medial
TLE. Consequently, the investigation of emotional and social competence in TLE
patients has been the focus of several studies. Such studies have extended the scope
of neuropsychological evaluation in TLE beyond the traditional evaluation of memory,
language, and executive functions.
Keywords Amygdala • Emotion Recognition • Emotional Prosody • Epilepsy •
Facial Expression • fMRI • Temporal Lobe Epilepsy • Temporal Lobectomy • Social
Cognition
S. Meletti , MD, PhD
Department of Biomedical, Metabolic, and Neural Science ,
University of Modena e Reggio Emilia , Modena , Italy
Neurology Unit , NOCSAE Hospital – AUSL ,
Via Giardini, 1355 – Nuovo Ospedale Civile , Modena , Italy
e-mail: stefano.meletti@unimore.it
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
M. Mula (ed.), Neuropsychiatric Symptoms of Epilepsy, Neuropsychiatric
Symptoms of Neurological Disease, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22159-5_11
177