Assessment of Social Cognition by Site of Lesion in Adults with Traumatic Brain Injury Using the Visual Social Inference Test

Abstract

Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) exhibit impaired performance on social cognition and theory of mind (ToM) measures, like the Video Social Inference Test (VSIT). The frontal lobe, being the primary region involved in higher level cognitive functions mediates the neural mechanisms involved in social cognition and ToM abilities, according to studies on brain and behaviour. The goal of this study was to examine if individuals with TBI who did not damage their frontal lobe would perform differently on the VSIT than individuals with TBI who did. This study was a secondary analysis of documented imaging data and VSIT scores obtained from 51 adults with moderate-to-severe TBI (23 females). A comparison was made between scores obtained on the VSIT between participants with and without frontal lobe lesions. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between the two groups, in other words, site of lesion in participants with TBI did not predict performance on the VSIT. The results suggest that while the VSIT may yield critical information about social cognition, it is not sensitive to individual site of lesion. There is evidence that aspects of social cognition are impaired in this clinical population, however, most research in this area is obstructed by the complex nature of TBI neuropathology in addition to small heterogenous samples involved in studies. Further research in this area is required in order to reveal and enhance our understanding of social cognition deficits following TBI. Keywords: social cognition, traumatic brain injury, theory of mind, frontal lobe lesions, video social inference test