Social Cognition and Emotion Inference Abilities in Healthy Aging and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Background Social cognition (SC) is a neurocognitive domain that can be affected by the pathophysiological changes of aging, and deteriorate in individuals diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s Disease. This social‐cognitive function involves the attribution of one’s mental states, including intentions (IA) and emotions (EA). As mentalization abilities may impact on daily functioning, research is focusing on SC processes in individuals at risk for age‐related neurocognitive decline. The present study aimed to 1) investigate SC abilities in MCI, compared to healthy individuals; 2) explore whether specific SC sub‐domains could be associated with MCI diagnosis. Method N = 468 outpatients referred to Bari University Hospital for neuropsychological assessment were classified into two groups: i) a cognitively spared (n = 166; M age = 61); ii) MCI (n = 302; M age = 67), characterized by objective deficits one or more neurocognitive domains (other than SC) not interfering with daily functioning. Sample classification resulted from multidomain, cognitive‐functional assessment procedures consistent with Petersen’s criteria (Petersen et al., 2014). A total of 185 subjects also completed the Story‐Based Empathy Task (SET), yielding four social cognition scores (i.e., global score [GS]; IA; EA; causal inference [CI]). After testing the distribution of the SET variable through the Shapiro‐Wilk test, the Mann‐Whitney U test was used to analyze mean differences between the two groups. Additionally, a binary logistic regression was conducted to assess whether impaired SC could be associated with MCI diagnosis. Result Patients with MCI showed significantly lower SC performances in all SET sub‐tests, compared to controls (SET‐GS: Z = ‐5.25; p<.001; SET‐IA: Z = ‐3.98; p<.001; SET‐EA: Z = ‐4.02; p<.001; SET‐CI: Z = ‐3.22; p<.001). Binary logistic regression with backward elimination revealed that among all SC sub‐domains, the inability to infer emotional states resulted being associated with MCI diagnosis (B = ‐.678; exp(B) = .507; p<.001). Regression analysis was overall significant (χ2 = 16.68; p<.001), and correctly classified 66% of cases. Conclusion Our findings highlighted significantly poorer SC performances in MCI, notably in the emotional inference sub‐domain. This preliminary evidence may contribute to the clinical understanding of social‐cognitive functioning in elderly individuals with mild/initial cognitive deficits, emphasizing the importance of accounting for SC in neuropsychological assessment to improve early diagnosis and strategies for dementia prevention.