Social Cognition and Emotional Assessment differentiates frontotemporal dementia from depression

Abstract

Background Behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a neurodegenerative disease that is clinically characterised by progressive behavioural changes and social interpersonal dysfunctions. Its diagnosis remains a clinical challenge, and depression is one of the main causes of misdiagnoses due to the prevalence of apathy in bvFTD. Objective To evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the Social Cognition and Emotional Assessment (SEA) and the mini-SEA for differentiating bvFTD from major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods Scores for the SEA and mini-SEA for 37 patients with bvFTD (divided into subgroups of 17 with early bvFTD and 20 with moderate bvFTD according to the normal range of the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale), 19 MDD patients and 30 control subjects were compared to define the discrimination power of these tools compared with other standard neuropsychological tests. Results SEA and mini-SEA scores were significantly lower for both the early and moderate bvFTD groups compared with control subjects and the MDD group, and very few scores overlapped between patients in the bvFTD subgroups and patients in the MDD and control subgroups. SEA and mini-SEA scores distinguished early bvFTD from MDD with sensitivity and specificity rates above 94%. Conclusion Unlike standard executive neuropsychological tests, SEA and the mini-SEA can differentiate MDD from bvFTD in the early stages of the disease. The mini-SEA is an easy tool that can be utilised in neurological or psychiatric departments.

The pulvinar nucleus and antidepressant treatment: dynamic modeling of antidepressant response and remission with ultra-high field functional MRI

“…The TPJ is involved in controlling theory of mind-related abilities [46], which were recently shown to be significantly reduced in MD [47] (although see negative results e.g., ref. [48]). MD patients exhibit a reduced visual arousal in the right TPJ [49].…”

Social Cognition Deficits: The Key to Discriminate Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia from Alzheimer’s Disease Regardless of Amnesia?

“…[19,36] This test has been linked, in bvFTD, to grey matter degeneration and perfusion decrease in rostral medial prefrontal cortex, [37,38] and has been shown to accurately distinguish bvFTD from Alzheimer's disease and depression. [9,39] Our findings have strong implications on a biomarker level. Indeed, current diagnosis of sporadic bvFTD remains challenging, as no biomarkers exist to diagnose the disease.…”

“…More details about the administration procedure were presented before in a previous study. [39] Standard protocol approvals, registrations and patient consent.…”

How Preserved is Emotion Recognition in Alzheimer Disease Compared With Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia?

“…Thirty-five Ekman faces were presented in a validated computerized test [8] and patients indicated which emotion was expressed (emotion labels were provided during the entire task). Seven different emotions were presented 5 times in a pseudorandom order (Happiness, Fear, Disgust, Neutral, Surprise, Anger and Sadness).…”