Avaliação do reconhecimento de emoções básicas expressas pela face em mulheres com lesão de hemisfério cerebral direito

Abstract

The specialization of the right cerebral hemisphere to the emotional aspects of communication, including the recognition and emotional processing of faces, has been evidenced in the scientific literature. Right hemisphere brain damage (RHBD) can impair communication and, consequently, social interactions, since they depend on adequate recognition of emotions. The present study aimed to contribute to the studies of impairments in the ability to identify emotions expressed by the face in patients with RHBD, aiming to measure if they cause interference in the performance in an instrument of emotional recognition of faces. We performed a comparison between the clinical groups - formed by 9 RHBD participants and 5 with left hemisphere brain damage (LHBD) - and control group, which was composed of 18 participants. Five statistically significant differences (p = 0,05) were found between the RHBD and control groups in the total recognition of emotions and emotions of sadness, anger, disgust and surprise. No differences were found between the LHBD group and the RHBD and control groups. Regarding the hypothesis of hemispheric asymmetry, it can be seen that the performance of the LHE group was superior to the LHD group. This study contributed to the assessment of neuropsychological damage after right hemispheric injury, considering that there is an important gap in this area of diagnosis and may help to improve the assesment and methods of rehabilitation of the studied population, mainly in the dysfunctions caused by RHBD.