Cognitive disinhibition and socioemotional functioning in Alzheimer's disease

Individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) experience difficulties with socioemotional functioning, and it has been proposed that cognitive disinhibition may be one potential mechanism that contributes to difficulties in this area. To test this possibility, twenty individuals with AD and 20 demographically matched controls were administered self-report measures of depression, emotion regulation and empathy, in addition to a behavioral measure that has proven to be very sensitive to inhibitory failures (the Hayling Sentence Completion Test). Relative to controls AD participants exhibited increased inhibitory failures on the Hayling, and self-reported significantly reduced cognitive empathy, but did not differ with respect to affective empathy, depression or perceived capacity for emotion regulation. Controlling for general cognitive status, in the AD (but not the control) group, reduced cognitive inhibition was associated with lower levels of depression. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.