Social behavior and impairments in social cognition following traumatic brain injury

Objectives: The negative effect of changes in social behaviour following traumatic brain injury (TBI) are known, but much less is known about the neuropsychological impairments that may underlie and predict these changes. The current study investigated possible associations between post-injury behaviour and neuropsychological competencies of emotion recognition, understanding intentions and response selection, that have been proposed as important for social functioning.

Method: Forty participants with TBI and 32 matched healthy participants completed a battery of tests assessing the three functions of interest. In addition, self- and proxy reports of pre- and post-injury behaviour, mood, and community integration were collected.

Results: The TBI group performed significantly poorer than the comparison group on all tasks of emotion recognition, understanding intention and on one task of response selection. Ratings of current behaviour suggested significant changes in the TBI group relative to before the injury and showed significantly poorer community integration and interpersonal behaviour than the comparison group. Of the three functions considered, emotion recognition was associated with both post-injury behaviour and community integration and this association could not be fully explained by injury severity, time since injury or education.

Conclusions: The current study confirmed earlier findings of associations between emotion recognition and post-TBI behaviour, providing partial evidence for models proposing emotion recognition as one of the pre-requisites for adequate social functioning.