Nature of the Link Between Executive Functions and Theory of Mind in Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. It can cause lesions responsible for motor, ocular, sensory and cognitive symptoms.

The Theory of Mind and the primary facial emotions recognition (anger, joy, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust) are two processes of social cognition that play a role in the social interactions and social reasoning. The Theory of Mind is defined by the ability to understand the other person including thoughts, beliefs and desires that are unique and that may be different from our own.

In multiple sclerosis, difficulties in social cognition are associated with cognitive disorders, (even if the link with a deficit in executive functions remains debated). Indeed, when attributing a mental state to another person is needed,it is mandatory to put ourselves in the other person's place to adopt another perspective. Thus, several executive functions are required: working memory to maintain and manipulate several perspectives, flexibility to switch from one perspective to another one, and finally the inhibition of our own perspective to adopt the other's point of view.

The Theory of Mind's assessment uses nonverbal false belief task which assesses the ability to inhibit its own perspective to infer the mental state of another and the ability to change its perspective to adopt another's.

Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore inhibition and inference abilities in The Theory of Mind skills in multiple sclerosis patients using the Theory of Mind task.