Impaired recognition of body expressions in the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia

Abstract

Progressive deterioration of social cognition and emotion processing are core symptoms of the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Here we investigate whether bvFTD is also associated with impaired recognition of static (Experiment 1) and dynamic (Experiment 2) bodily expressions. In addition, we compared body expression processing with processing of static (Experiment 3) and dynamic (Experiment 4) facial expressions, as well as with face identity processing (Experiment 5). The results reveal that bvFTD is associated with impaired recognition of static and dynamic bodily and facial expressions, while identity processing was intact. No differential impairments were observed regarding motion (static vs. dynamic) or category (body vs. face). Within the bvFTD group, we observed a significant partial correlation between body and face expression recognition, when controlling for performance on the identity task. Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM) analysis revealed that body emotion recognition was positively associated with gray matter volume in a region of the inferior frontal gyrus (pars orbitalis/triangularis). The results are in line with a supramodal emotion recognition deficit in bvFTD.

Functional dissociation between anterior temporal lobe and inferior frontal gyrus in the processing of dynamic body expressions: Insights from behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia

“…They are components of various intrinsic brain networks such as the salience network [Seeley et al, 2007], comprising anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula, the default or mentalizing network [Buckner et al, 2008], including precuneus, temporo-parietal junction, medial prefrontal cortex, and the temporal poles, the action observation network [Grafton, 2009], including occipito-temporal, parietal and premotor areas, and the limbic network [Yeo et al, 2011]. Furthermore, numerous behavioral studies have shown impaired emotion recognition in bvFTD patients, using faces [Baez et al, 2014;Bediou et al, 2009;Bertoux et al, 2015;Couto et al, 2013;Diehl-Schmid et al, 2007;Fernandez-Duque and Black, 2005;Keane et al, 2002;Kumfor et al, 2011;Lavenu et al, 1999;Lough et al, 2006;Miller et al, 2012;Rosen et al, 2002;Snowden et al, 2008;Virani et al, 2013], bodies [Van den Stock et al, 2015] and music [Downey et al, 2013;Omar et al, 2011] as test stimuli. To gain insights into the specific functions that individual brain regions perform during emotion perception, we investigated emotion processing in patients diagnosed with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).…”

Integration of Intention and Outcome for Moral Judgment in Frontotemporal Dementia: Brain Structural Signatures

“…Moreover, the patients' difficulties to integrate intentions and outcomes for moral judgment may be related to impairments in theory of mind. Deficits in this ability have been reported in bvFTD patients [52,54,61,63]. Given that the patients' moral judgments tended to focus on outcomes rather than intentions, their performance may have been influenced by mental-perspective-taking deficits.…”

“…The association between both variables should be explored in future research on bvFTD. In addition, bodily and facial emotion recognition is affected in bvFTD patients [63,64]. Emotion-processing deficits have been associated with moral judgment impairments [21,65], and key brain regions involved in emotion processing (e.g.…”

Emotion Science in the Twenty-First Century. Time, Sex, and Behavior in Emotion Science: Over and Above

“…we are “standing up for the body” (de Gelder et al, 2010) and exploring body language reading in typical (Atkinson et al, 2004, 2012; Chouchourelou et al, 2006; Ikeda and Watanabe, 2009; Alaerts et al, 2011; Sokolov et al, 2011; Krüger et al, 2013; Actis-Grosso et al, 2015; de Gelder et al, 2015; for review, see Pavlova, 2017) and atypical development (e.g., Nackaerts et al, 2012; Strauss et al, 2015; Van den Stock et al, 2015; Vaskinn et al, 2016; Blain et al, 2017). …”