The role of the dorsal striatum in the recognition of emotions expressed by voice in Parkinson’s disease

Background and purpose: Non-motor impairment such as emotion recognition deficit in both facial and vocal expressions has been previously reported in Parkinson’s disease (PD). We investigated whether the decoding of emotional prosody is impaired in PD and whether this deficit is related to striatal damage. Methods: Fifteen PD patients and 15 healthy controls (HCs) were requested to listen to six audio tracks and to recognize the emotions expressed by a professional actor while reading a meaning-neutral sentence. All subjects also received a structural MRI examination. Volumetric measurements were extracted for the striatum, a key region involved in emotional processing and typically impaired in PD. Results: Decoding sadness conveyed by voice was impaired in PD compared with HC and was related to the volume of the dorsal striatum bilaterally. Conclusions: The dorsal striatum is involved in the decoding of vocal negative emotions in PD.