Assessing the “social brain” in dementia: Applying TASIT-S

Social Cognition Dysfunctions in Neurodegenerative Diseases: Neuroanatomical Correlates and Clinical Implications

“…With regard to the ability to make judgements about others' behavior, attitudes, and emotions (i.e., social perception and empathy domains), patients with bvFTD may experience impaired emotion recognition, empathy, and sarcasm detection [ 73 , 77 , 104 , 105 ]. In particular, performance on the newly developed TASIT-S, regarding emotion recognition and sarcasm detection, has been revealed impaired in bvFTD and relatively intact in AD [ 14 ]. However, although most studies have focused on the verbal categorization of facial expressions [ 106 ], deficits have also been reported under different task conditions and stimulus modalities including vocal [ 107 ], bodily [ 108 ], and musical [ 109 ] expressions of emotion.…”

“…A core social cognition network is centered on the amygdala which has been proven to play a pivotal role in emotion processing, from triggering emotional responses to detecting socially salient stimuli and performing social affiliative behaviors [ 4 , 8 , 9 ], and to be connected to multiple brain regions involved in emotion circuits [ 10 , 11 ]. Abnormalities within this network, comprising most components of the social brain (i.e., medial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior cingulate cortex, temporoparietal junction, inferior frontal gyrus, and superior temporal sulcus), have been revealed in patients affected by schizophrenia [ 12 , 13 ], frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) [ 14 , 15 ], and autism spectrum disorder [ 16 - 18 ]. In particular, activation in the OFC and ventromedial prefrontal cortex has been shown to be not essential for affective responses, but critical for the attribution of meaning to an affective stimulus [ 19 ], while activation in the lateral part of the prefrontal region has been found to be associated with a feeling of displeasure and inhibits behavior [ 20 ].…”

Empathy and Theory of Mind in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Meta-analysis

“…Importantly, it has been found that in the mild to moderate stages of AD, key brain regions involved in overall ToM processingthe precuneus, temporal poles, and posterior superior temporal sulcusare affected (Bailly et al, 2013;Ciaramidaro et al, 2007;Enrici et al, 2011;Gomez-Isla et al, 1997;Ramos et al, 2017;Ryu et al, 2005;Schroeter et al, 2009;Sebastian et al, 2011;Stone, Baron-Cohen, & Knight, 1998). While some studies have provided evidence for AD-related impairment on one or both ToM components (Dodich et al, 2016;Moreau et al, 2016;Yamaguchi et al, 2019), others have identified no significant AD-related impairment for either (Heitz et al, 2016;Kumfor et al, 2017) or have reported evidence of a disconnect between the two (Bertoux et al, 2016;Fliss et al, 2016). For instance, one recent study reported that only the affective but not the cognitive component of ToM was impaired (Bertoux et al, 2016), while a different study reported the reverse pattern of impairment (Fliss et al, 2016).…”

Commentary: Beyond the face: how context modulates emotion processing in frontotemporal dementia subtypes

“…Previous research has indirectly investigated the difficulty in understanding contextual information in patients with FTD. For example, bvFTD patients show abnormalities in interpreting sarcastic, but not sincere statements, which is linked to the disproportionate atrophy in the right amygdala, right lateral orbitofrontal cortex, right temporal pole (Kipps et al, 2009), and precuneus (Kumfor et al, 2017). Findings of Kipps et al (2009) and Kumfor et al (2017) may be explained as dysfunctions in integrating discordant contextual cues (e.g., voice and face) to judge the true intent of others (Ibanez and Manes, 2012).…”

“…For example, bvFTD patients show abnormalities in interpreting sarcastic, but not sincere statements, which is linked to the disproportionate atrophy in the right amygdala, right lateral orbitofrontal cortex, right temporal pole (Kipps et al, 2009), and precuneus (Kumfor et al, 2017). Findings of Kipps et al (2009) and Kumfor et al (2017) may be explained as dysfunctions in integrating discordant contextual cues (e.g., voice and face) to judge the true intent of others (Ibanez and Manes, 2012). The social context network model (SCNM) has recently been proposed (Ibanez and Manes, 2012;Baez et al, 2017), which holds that social situations are commonly context-embedded.…”