Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jun;45(6):2697-2703.
doi: 10.1007/s10072-024-07303-3. Epub 2024 Jan 8.

Reading the mind in the eyes in patients with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder

Xudong Li  1   2 , Miaoxin Shen  3 , Zhihong Shen  4 , Ziling Han  3 , Jinsong Jiao  5 , Xiaopeng Tong  6
Affiliations

Reading the mind in the eyes in patients with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder

Xudong Li et al. Neurol Sci. 2024 Jun.

Abstract

Objectives: Idiopathic rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) is characterized by vocalizations, jerks, and motor behaviors during REM sleep, often associated with REM-related dream content, which is considered a prodromal stage of α-synucleinopathy. The results of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) reflecting affective Theory of Mind (ToM) are inconsistent in α-synucleinopathy. The present study tried to investigate the RME in patients with iRBD.

Methods: A total of 35 patients with iRBD and 26 healthy controls were included in the study. All participants were administered the RME and the cognitive assessments according to a standard procedure. The patients with iRBD were further divided into two groups (high or low RME) according to the scores of the RME (> 21, or ≤ 20).

Results: The patients with iRBD had worse scores on cognitive tests compared with healthy controls involving global cognitive screening, memory, and visuospatial abilities (p < 0.05), but the scores of the RME were similar between the two groups (20.83 ± 3.38, 20.58 ± 3.43) (p ˃ 0.05). Patients with low RME had more obvious cognitive impairments than healthy controls. After applying Bonferroni correction for multiple tests, the low REM group only performed worse on the Sum of trials 1 to 5 and delayed recall of the RAVLT compared with the healthy control group (p < 0.001, = 0.002). The RME correlated with the scores of cognitive tests involving executive function, attention, memory, and visuospatial function.

Conclusions: The changes in RME had a relationship with cognitive impairments, especially memory, in patients with iRBD.

Keywords: Cognition; Idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder; Reading the mind in the eyes; Synucleinopathy; Theory of Mind.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Högl B, Stefani A, Videnovic A (2018) Idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder and neurodegeneration-an update. Nat Rev Neurol 14:40–55. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2017.157 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cicero CE, Giuliano L, Luna J, Zappia M, Preux PM, Nicoletti A (2021) Prevalence of idiopathic REM behavior disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep 44:zsaa294. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaa294 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Stang CD, Mullan AF, Hajeb M, Camerucci E, Turcano P, Martin P et al (2021) Timeline of Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder in overt alpha-synucleinopathies. Ann Neurol 89:293–303. https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.25952 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Galbiati A, Verga L, Giora E, Zucconi M, Ferini-Strambi L (2019) The risk of neurodegeneration in REM sleep behavior disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Sleep Med Rev 43:37–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2018.09.008 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Carli G, Caminiti SP, Sala A, Galbiati A, Pilotto A, Ferini-Strambi L et al (2020) Impaired metabolic brain networks associated with neurotransmission systems in the α-synuclein spectrum. Parkinsonism Relat Disord 81:113–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.parkreldis.2020.10.036 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources