F051 Emotion recognition deficits in people with Huntington’s disease: 30 years in review

<h3>Background</h3> People with Huntington’s disease (HD) may experience a wide range of neuropsychological difficulties. Among these, deficits of emotion recognition have received increasing attention over the last few decades. However, the characterisation of such deficits across different disease stages (e.g., manifest v. premanifest) or different types of stimuli and sensory modalities is currently unclear. <h3>Aims</h3> Following the 30th anniversary of the discovery of the HD gene in 2023, the aim of the present study was to shed light on the evidence on emotion recognition deficits in HD accrued over the past three decades. <h3>Methods</h3> A systematic review of the literature from January 1993 to January 2024 (PROSPERO registration: CRD42023398649) was carried out across four major databases: MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Academic Search Complete, CINAHL. <h3>Results</h3> From an initial return of 9337 citations, 55 studies were considered eligible for inclusion. The majority of these consistently reported significant deficits of emotion recognition in people with manifest HD based on visual tasks involving facial stimuli. Preliminary evidence was also found for deficits based on emotional body language stimuli as well as auditory, olfactory, and gustatory tasks. The literature involving emotion recognition in people with premanifest HD was instead found to be sparser and still inconclusive. <h3>Conclusions</h3> The evidence from the last 30 years consistently supports the presence of deficits of identification of emotions from facial stimuli in manifest HD. However, further investigations are warranted to clarify whether such impairments also affect other sensory modalities as well as individuals at the premanifest stage of the condition.