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Background: Social cognition is the study of how people make sense of themselves and others. Impairment in several domains of social cognition is increasingly being recognized in Parkinson's disease (PD). Objectives: We aimed to study multiple domains of social cognition in Indian PD patients using a culturally appropriate, validated instrument. Methods: We recruited 52 individuals with PD and 31 healthy volunteers (HV) and used the Social Cognition Rating Tools in Indian Setting (SOCRATIS) tool to assess theory of mind (ToM), attributional biases and social cue perception. Quality of life (QoL) was assessed using the PDQOL scale. Results: Baseline characteristics were comparable between PD and HV. The mean (SD) FOT index (first order ToM index) was 0.86(0.18) in PD and 0.99(0.07) in HV [P < 0.001]. The PD group showed higher Externalizing Bias [EB, 4.42(3.91)], compared to HV [1.58(3.22), P = 0.001]. The mean (SD) Faux Pas Composite Index (FPCI ALT) was 0.69(0.09) in PD and 0.78(0.13) in HV [P < 0.001]. Social cognition indices were not associated with QoL in PD. Clinical parameters-age, gender, HAM-D, MOCA, education, levodopa equivalent daily dose of medication, number of PD drugs and trihexyphenidyl use did not predict social cognition. Conclusion: PD patients were less successful than age, gender matched controls in understanding social situations and other's thought processes and had higher tendency to attribute undesirable events to external causes. Deficits in social cognition did not impair the quality of life.

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The role of social cue recognition and attributional bias on social functioning has been sparsely studied in remitted bipolar disorder (BD). In view of this, we evaluated thirty subjects with BD (without a history of psychotic symptoms) who were in remission and thirty age and, gender-matched healthy controls for social cue recognition [using SoCueReTI (Social Cue Recognition Test- Indian Setting)], and attributional bias (using an Attributional style questionnaire). Social functioning was assessed in subjects with BD using the Functional assessment short test (FAST) - Interpersonal relationships. Subjects with BD had significant deficits in recognizing social cues in low-intensity and high-intensity vignettes when compared to healthy controls. Deficits in recognizing social cues in low-intensity vignettes were significantly correlated with the FAST scores, even after controlling for the number of episodes and duration of illness. Further replication studies are needed to ascertain the association between social cue recognition deficits and social functioning in BD.

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William Harvey's writings betray amazing insights born out of countless hours of thoughtful experimentation. Throughout his life, Harvey worked as a tireless and thoughtful researcher and a transmitter and intermediary between the ancient Greek natural philosophers and physicians and the "moderns," for whom he founded two forward-looking, interlinked sciences: modern physiology and nascent cardiology. Harvey's methodology and demonstrations were of such fundamental and standardizing nature as to secure the sure progress of these two sciences. Thus, he rendered to them such a service as Descartes's cogito ergo sum furnished to Philosophy in giving it a rational standard of certainty, for want of which the more speculative minds of that era were inundated with extraordinary conjectures. If Harvey disproved Galen, he absorbed and continued in his physiologic research many a principle from Aristotle, whose supreme disciple he remains. The guidance and authority of Aristotle were strong with him to the end. Harvey's account of the motions of the heart and blood in the circulation demonstrated that complex physiological systems can be represented in straightforward mechanical terms, a concept which has remained fundamental to the present day. The philosophical implication of William Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood was the resolute application of the experimental method to cardiology. In my judgment, he established today's forward-looking discipline of translational cardiovascular research. In due course, he should be widely acknowledged to have done so.

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