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Social Cognition in Autism and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: The Same but Different?

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Abstract

Social cognition impairment is a core shared phenotype in both schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This study compares social cognition performance through four different instruments in a sample of 147 individuals with ASD or SSD and in healthy controls. We found that both clinical groups perform similarly to each other and worse than healthy controls in all social cognition tasks. Only performance on the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) test was independent of age and intelligence. Proportionately, individuals in the control group made significantly more overmentalization errors than both patients group did and made fewer undermentalization errors than patients with SSD did. AUC analyses showed that the MASC was the instrument that best discriminated between the clinical and control groups. Multivariate analysis showed negative symptom severity as a potential mediator of the association between social cognition deficit and poor global functioning.

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Acknowledgments

This study is part of the first author’s PhD thesis, registered in the Autonomous University of Madrid in 2011. The authors are grateful to Isabel Dziobek for the cession of the original instrument and the help during the adaptation process.

Funding

This study has been supported by AUSSD project funded by the ‘Network of European Funding for Neuroscience Research – ERA-NET NEURON, the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. Instituto de Salud Carlos III, co-financed by ERDF Funds from the European Commission, “A way of making Europe”, CIBERSAM. Madrid Regional Government (S2010/BMD-2422 AGES), European Union Structural Funds and European Union Seventh Framework Program and FP7-HEALTH-2009-2.2.1-2-241909 (Project EU-GEI), FP7-HEALTH-2009-2.2.1-3-242114 (Project OPTiMISE), FP7-HEALTH-2013-2.2.1-2-603196 (Project PSYSCAN) and FP7- HEALTH-2013-2.2.1-2-602478 (Project METSY); and European Union H2020 Program; Program under the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (grant agreement No 115916; Project PRISM), Fundación Alicia Koplowitz and Fundación Mutua Madrileña.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Programa AMI-TEA, Servicio de Psiquiatría del Niño y del Adolescente, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, School of Medicine, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, IiSGM, Universidad Complutense, C/ Ibiza, 43, 28009, Madrid, Spain

    L. Boada, L. Pina-Camacho, J. Merchán-Naranjo, C. M. Díaz-Caneja & M. Parellada

  2. Psychiatry/Medical Specialities Department, Faculty of Medicine, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain

    G. Lahera

  3. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, UK

    L. Pina-Camacho

  4. Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, IiSGM, Madrid, Spain

    J. M. Bellón

  5. Department of Basic Psychology, Autónoma University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    J. M. Ruiz-Vargas

Authors
  1. L. Boada
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  2. G. Lahera
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  3. L. Pina-Camacho
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  4. J. Merchán-Naranjo
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  5. C. M. Díaz-Caneja
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  6. J. M. Bellón
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  7. J. M. Ruiz-Vargas
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  8. M. Parellada
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Contributions

LB conceived the study, participated in its design and coordination, obtained the measurements, performed the statistical analysis and participated in the interpretation of the data and drafted the manuscript; GL and MP participated in its design and coordination, in the interpretation of the data and helped to draft the manuscript; CDC, LP and JMN participated in the statistical analysis and helped to draft the manuscript; JMB participated in the statistical analysis; JMRV conceived the study and its theoretical framework. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to L. Boada.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have neither financial relationships nor conflicts of interest relevant to this article to disclose. Lahera has been a consultant to or has received honoraria or grants from Janssen-Cilag, Otsuka-Lundbeck, Lilly, Astra-Zeneca, CIBERSAM and Instituto de Salud Carlos III Pina-Camacho, L. and Diaz-Caneja, CM have received grants from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, and from Fundación Alicia Koplowitz. Mara Parellada has been consultant for Foundation Alicia Koplowitz, Servier and Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Ministry of Health, Madrid, Spain, has received grant support from ISCIII, Horizon2020 of the European Union, Fundación Mutua Madrileña, Fundación Orange, CIBERSAM, has received educational support from Otsuka and Janssen Cilag and has participated in Clinical Trials with the economic support of Horizon 2020, Roche and Servier.

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Boada, L., Lahera, G., Pina-Camacho, L. et al. Social Cognition in Autism and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: The Same but Different?. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 3046–3059 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04408-4

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