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. 2020 Nov 4;10(3):115-126.
doi: 10.1159/000511329. eCollection 2020 Sep-Dec.

Social Cognition Deficits Are Pervasive across Both Classical and Overlap Frontotemporal Dementia Syndromes

Faheem Arshad  1 , Avanthi Paplikar  1 , Shailaja Mekala  2 , Feba Varghese  1 , Vandana Valiyaparambath Purushothaman  3 , Darshini Jeevandra Kumar  3 , Leena Shingavi  1 , Seena Vengalil  1 , Subasree Ramakrishnan  1 , Ravi Yadav  1 , Pramod Kumar Pal  1 , Atchayaram Nalini  1 , Suvarna Alladi  1
Affiliations

Social Cognition Deficits Are Pervasive across Both Classical and Overlap Frontotemporal Dementia Syndromes

Faheem Arshad et al. Dement Geriatr Cogn Dis Extra. .

Abstract

Objectives: Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) syndromes are a complex group of disorders characterised by profound changes in behaviour and cognition. Many of the observed behavioural abnormalities are now recognised to be due to impaired social cognition. While deficits in emotion recognition and empathy are well-recognised in behavioural-variant (Bv)FTD, limited information exists about the nature of social cognitive impairment in the language variant primary progressive aphasia (PPA) that includes progressive non-fluent aphasia (PNFA) and semantic dementia (SD), and in the motor variants FTD amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (FTD-ALS) and FTD progressive supranuclear palsy (FTD-PSP). This prospective study sought to explore the nature and profile of social cognition deficits across the spectrum of FTD.

Methods: Sixty patients on the FTD spectrum, i.e., classical (16 with BvFTD and 20 with PPA) and overlap FTD syndromes (13 with FTD-ALS and 11 with FTD-PSP) were evaluated by means of the social cognition tasks, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) for empathy, and pictures of facial affect (POFA) for emotion recognition. General cognition and behaviour were also assessed.

Results: A significant impairment in emotion recognition and empathy was detected in both the classical and overlap FTD syndromes. The recognition of positive emotions was relatively preserved compared to that of negative emotions. Among the FTD subtypes, maximal impairment of empathy was demonstrated in FTD-PSP.

Conclusion: Social cognition impairment is pervasive across the spectrum of FTD disorders, and tests of emotion recognition and empathy are clinically useful to identify the nature of behavioural problems in both classical and overlap FTD. Our findings also have implications for understanding the neural basis of social cognition in FTD.

Keywords: Emotion recognition; Empathy; Frontotemporal dementia; Semantic dementia; Social cognition.

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Conflict of interest statement

A.P. is funded by Department of Science and Technology − Science and Engineering Research Board (DST-SERB). F.V. is funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research. The authors declare no competing interests.

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