UF researcher to study facial expressions in patients with Parkinson's disease

The inability to produce facial expressions, a common side effect of Parkinson's disease, is the focus of a new four-year study by a University of Florida neuropsychologist.

Dawn Bowers, Ph.D., a professor in the department of clinical and health psychology in the College of Public Health and Health Professions, has received a $1.7 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to study this little-understood symptom of Parkinson's disease.

Facial expressions are complex signals that are brief, but vital for communicating intention, motivation and emotional states, said Bowers, the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at UF's McKnight Brain Institute.

"Patients with Parkinson's disease are often misdiagnosed as being depressed when they are not, or they are viewed as disagreeable and negative individuals," she said. "An interesting study done about 15 years ago found that health-care providers consistently rated patients with Parkinson's as more anxious, depressed, and suspicious than cardiac patients, even though the groups did not differ on objective measures of mood. Thus, facial inexpressivity has real world consequences in terms of appropriate diagnosis, treatment and health care, and this makes it a public health concern."

Using specially designed computer technology to digitize and analyze expressions, the research team will examine whether or not spontaneous and posed expressions are both disrupted by Parkinson's disease, and how dopamine medications influence facial expressions. A major focus of the research is to learn whether facial expressivity can be improved by muscle strength training, using an approach developed by one of Bower's collaborators, Christine Sapienza, Ph.D., a professor and associate chair of the department of communication sciences and disorders in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

"It would be wonderful if we find that the 'masked' face of Parkinson's disease can be improved through a simple routine of daily exercises," Bowers said.