Neural correlates of empathic impairment in the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia

Cerami, Chiara; Dodich, Alessandra; Canessa, Nicola; Crespi, Chiara; Marcone, Alessandra; Cortese, Francesca; Chierchia, Gabriele; Scola, Elisa; Falini, Andrea; Cappa, Stefano F.

doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2014.01.005

Cited by 68 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Our recent findings of emotion attribution deficits, mainly related to grey matter reduction in fronto-temporal and limbic regions in the early stages of bvFTD [14] and in ALS [10] confirm this hypothesis. The Corrected SET-GS = raw score -0.371 9 (log(100 -age) -1.679) -0.277 9 (Heducation -3.619);…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…An increased vulnerability of EA skills have been shown, for example, in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) [10], reflecting a selective involvement of the inferior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex. In contrast, other conditions, such as Parkinson's disease [9] major depression [11], schizophrenia [12,13] and the behavioural variant of fronto-temporal dementia (bvFTD) [14] showed impairments in both aspects of this cognitive ability. The two sub-components have, however, in general been investigated using different tasks, making a direct comparison of results difficult.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Thus, based on previous studies [13,22,23], we constructed a novel cartoon task of intention and emotion attribution (i.e., the Story-based Empathy Task-SET) and tested it on different populations of neurological patients with known disorders of social cognitions [10,14], as well as temporal lobe epilepsy [24]. Here, we report the normative data and the correction grid for an Italian population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A novel task assessing intention and emotion attribution: Italian standardization and normative data of the Story-based Empathy Task

et al. 2015

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Theory of Mind (ToM), the process by which an individual imputes mental states to himself and others, is presently considered as a multidimensional cognitive domain, with two main facets (i.e., cognitive and affective ToM) accounting, respectively, for the ability to understand others' intention (intention attribution-IA) and emotions (emotion attribution-EA). Despite the large amount of literature investigating the behavioural and neural bases of mentalizing abilities in neurological conditions, there is still a lack of validated neuropsychological tools specifically designed to assess such skills. Here, we report the normative data of the Story-Based Empathy Task (SET), a non-verbal test developed for the assessment of intention and emotion attribution in the neurodegenerative conditions characterized by the impairment of social-emotional abilities. It is an easy-to-administer task including 18 stimuli, sub-grouped into two experimental conditions assessing, respectively, the ability to infer others' intentions (SET-IA) and emotions (SET-EA), compared to a control condition of causal inference (SET-CI). Normative data were collected in 136 Italian subjects pooled across subgroups homogenous for age (range 20-79 years), sex, and education (at least 5 years). The results show a detrimental effect of age and a beneficial effect of education on both the global score and each subscale, for which we provide correction grids. This new task could be a useful tool to investigate both affective and cognitive aspects of ToM in the course of disorders of socio-emotional behaviour, such as the fronto-temporal dementia spectrum.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A novel task assessing intention and emotion attribution: Italian standardization and normative data of the Story-based Empathy Task

et al. 2015

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“…Behavioural changes were explored, using caregiver questionnaires (i.e., Neuropsychiatric Inventory and Frontal Behavioral Inventory). For a better diagnostic accuracy, starting from 2009 patients also underwent a socio-emotional battery including emotion recognition (i.e., Ekman 60-Faces task [26,27]) and emotion and intention attribution (i.e., Story-based Empathy task [28]) tasks. Carers completed also the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) [29], a standardized questionnaire of empathy.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motor neuron dysfunctions in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration spectrum: A clinical and neurophysiological study

Cerami

Marcone

Crespi

et al. 2015

Journal of the Neurological Sciences

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“…The reduced ability to either show empathy or recognise particular emotional expressions can accompany and sometimes foreshadow the manifestation of other, often more gross, symptoms associated with fronto-temporal dementia (Cerami et al, 2014), ParkinsonÕs Disease (Clark, Neargarder & Cronin-Golomb, 2010), Autism (HappŽ & Frith, 2014), Schizophrenia (Konstantkopoulos et al, 2014) and post-traumatic stress disorder (Poljac et al, 2011). All these conditions can be difficult to distinguish from other syndromes, especially in the initial stages, and given the links demonstrated here, there is renewed reason to build on the small number of studies that 16 have started to explore the diagnostic sensitivity of smell ability in these populations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional Correlates of Unirhinal Odor Identification

Sakel

Wilkinson²,

Moreno³

et al. 2015

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

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It seems self-evident that smell profoundly shapes emotion, but less clear is the nature of this interaction. Here we sought to determine whether the ability to identify odors co-varies with self-reported feelings of empathy and emotional expression recognition, as predicted if the two capacities draw on common resource. Thirty six neurotypical volunteers were administered the Alberta Smell Test, The Interpersonal Reactivity Index and an emotional expression recognition task. Statistical analyses indicated that feelings of emotional empathy positively correlated with odor discrimination in right nostril, while the recognition of happy and fearful facial expressions positively correlated with odor discrimination in left nostril.These results uncover new links between olfactory discrimination and emotion which, given the ipsilateral configuration of the olfactory projections, point towards intra-rather than interhemispheric interaction. The results also provide novel support for the proposed lateralisation of emotional empathy and the recognition of facial expression, and give reason to further explore the diagnostic sensitivity of smell tests because reduced sensitivity to othersÕ emotions can mark the onset of certain neurological diseases.

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Neural correlates of empathic impairment in the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia

Cited by 68 publications

References 45 publications

A novel task assessing intention and emotion attribution: Italian standardization and normative data of the Story-based Empathy Task

A novel task assessing intention and emotion attribution: Italian standardization and normative data of the Story-based Empathy Task

Motor neuron dysfunctions in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration spectrum: A clinical and neurophysiological study

Emotional Correlates of Unirhinal Odor Identification

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