AUTHOR=Almondes Katie Moraes de , Júnior Francisco Wilson Nogueira Holanda , Leonardo Maria Emanuela Matos , Alves Nelson Torro 

TITLE=Facial Emotion Recognition and Executive Functions in Insomnia Disorder: An Exploratory Study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00502

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00502

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Background</title><p>Clinical and experimental findings suggest that insomnia is associated with changes in emotional processing and impairments in cognitive functioning. In the present study, we investigate the relationship between facial emotion recognition and executive functioning among individuals with insomnia as well as healthy controls.</p></sec><sec><title>Method</title><p>A total of 11 individuals (mean age 31.3 ± 9.4) diagnosed with insomnia disorder and 15 control participants (mean age 24.8 ± 4.6) took part in the study. Participants responded to a facial emotion recognition task which presented them with static and dynamic stimuli, and were evaluated with regard to cognition, sleep, and mood.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Compared to controls, we found that participants with insomnia performed worse in the recognition of the facial emotion of fear (<italic>p</italic> = 0.001;<inline-formula><mml:math id="INEQ1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msubsup><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">η</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mtext>p</mml:mtext></mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msubsup></mml:math></inline-formula> = 0.549; β = 0.999) and had lower scores in tests of verbal comprehension and perceptual organization (104.00 vs. 115.00, <italic>U</italic> = 135.5; <italic>p</italic> = 0.004; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B27">Cohen’s, 2013</xref><italic>d</italic> = 1.281). We also found a relationship between facial emotion recognition and performance in cognitive tests, such as those related to perceptual organization, cognitive flexibility, and working memory.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>Results suggest that participants with insomnia may present some impairment in executive functions as well as in the recognition of facial emotions with negative valences (fear and sadness).</p></sec>