Social Cognition: An Early Impairment in Dementia of the Alzheimer Type

Abstract

The remarkable deficit in attribution of intention in our patients with DAT at onset and the following deterioration of their performance in reasoning about physical causality with persons may reflect progressive dysfunction of the superior temporal sulcus in Alzheimer disease.

Motor resonance mechanisms are preserved in Alzheimer’s disease patients

“…Furthermore, while some have found evidence for the involvement of both frontal and parietal regions in developing and maintaining a social cognition (Adolphs, 1999), a small number of works on this topic in AD have actually found contrasting evidences. Indeed, some studies (Cuerva et al, 2001;Verdon et al, 2007) described AD patients' impairment in Theory of Mind tasks -TOM (for reviews see Meltzoff, 1999;Frith and Frith, 2006). In contrast, Gregory et al (2002) compared AD patients with a population of frontal variant frontotemporal dementia (fvFDT), and found that AD patients' difficulties in TOM were only for tasks requiring heavy demands on working memory suggesting that AD patients are not generally impaired in TOM tests, but rather other underlying processes, like memory, are responsible for the observed TOM deficits.…”

Theory of Mind in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment: An fMRI Study

“…On the contrary, in unsuccessful neurocognitive aging, extensive literature has demonstrated the presence of ToM deficits at the behavioral level in various types of dementia: frontotemporal dementia [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37], Parkinson's disease [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49], and Alzheimer's disease (AD) [31,36,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. With regards to AD, several works reported a ToM deficit in second-order level of false belief reasoning [31,52,55,56] and only one found an impairment at basic levels [52].…”

A Perspective on Psychosis in Late Life and Deficits in Social Cognition

“…37 Theory of mind deficits have also been noted in those with AD-in particular, difficulty in second-order false belief tasks. 37,44 It has been suggested that this deficit may be secondary to working memory impairment in AD, 37 but deficits in attributing psychological intention were apparent in patients even for tasks where the use of working memory was minimized. 44 It has been felt that deficits in social cognition in dementia cannot be explained just by memory or executive dysfunction.…”

“…37,44 It has been suggested that this deficit may be secondary to working memory impairment in AD, 37 but deficits in attributing psychological intention were apparent in patients even for tasks where the use of working memory was minimized. 44 It has been felt that deficits in social cognition in dementia cannot be explained just by memory or executive dysfunction. 37,44 In addition, some studies with younger patients with schizophrenia, have found deficits in the theory of mind and executive functioning to be independent from one another.…”

“…44 It has been felt that deficits in social cognition in dementia cannot be explained just by memory or executive dysfunction. 37,44 In addition, some studies with younger patients with schizophrenia, have found deficits in the theory of mind and executive functioning to be independent from one another. 4 When comparing social cognitive deficits in those with AD versus FTD, patients with FTD were noted to have more significant impairment.…”