Mental States in Moving Shapes: Distinct Cortical and Subcortical Contributions to Theory of Mind Impairments in Dementia

Synn, Artemis; Mothakunnel, Annu; Kumfor, Fiona; Chen, Yu; Piguet, Olivier; Hodges, John R.; Irish, Muireann

doi:10.3233/jad-170809

Cited by 59 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 94 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The thalamus exhibits dense connections to the hypothalamus which may also potentially influence changes in body composition through neuroendocrine inputs, and has been previously implicated in changes in eating behavior in FTD and BMI in ALS . Changes in body composition (android: gynoid ratio and VAT area) also correlated to atrophy of the cerebellum, which has again been implicated in overeating behavior in FTD, and a range of autonomic, cognitive, emotional functions, and reward processing …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Neural networks associated with body composition in frontotemporal dementia

Landín-Romero

Liang

Keogh

et al. 2019

Ann Clin Transl Neurol

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is associated with complex changes in eating behavior and metabolism, which potentially affect disease pathogenesis and survival. It is currently not known if body composition changes and changes in fat deposition also exist in FTD, the relationship of these changes in eating behavior and appetite, and whether these changes are centrally mediated. Methods Body composition was measured in 28 people with behavioral‐variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), 16 with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and 19 healthy controls, using dual energy x‐ray absorptiometry. Changes in body composition were correlated to brain grey matter atrophy using voxel‐based morphometry on high‐resolution magnetic resonance imaging. Results Behavioral‐variant FTD was characterized by changes in body composition, with increased total fat mass, visceral adipose tissue area (VAT area), and android: gynoid ratio compared to control and AD participants (all P values < 0.05). Changes in body composition correlated to abnormal eating behavior and behavioral change (P < 0.01) and functional decline (P < 0.01). Changes in body composition also correlated to grey matter atrophy involving a distributed neural network that included the hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, insula, cingulate, and cerebellum – structures known to be central to autonomic control – as well as the thalamus, putamen, accumbens, and caudate, which are involved in reward processing. Conclusions Changes in body composition and fat deposition extend the clinical phenomenology in bvFTD beyond cognition and behavior, with changes associated with changes in reward and autonomic processing suggesting that these deficits may be central in FTD

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Neural networks associated with body composition in frontotemporal dementia

Landín-Romero

Liang

Keogh

et al. 2019

Ann Clin Transl Neurol

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Regarding decoding processes, studies in AD using photographs of faces expressing basic emotions have yielded inconsistent results (for a review, see Klein-Koerkamp et al, 2012), with some studies reporting a deficit (Kumfor et al, 2014;Laisney et al, 2013) and others not (Bucks & Radford, 2004;Fernandez-Duque et al, 2009). Links are frequently found between affective ToM and other cognitive functions, especially flexibility, working and/or episodic memory, and inhibition (Castelli et al, 2011;Fliss et al, 2016;Ramanan et al, 2017;Synn et al, 2018). As a result, the ToM impairments of patients with AD are often attributed to cognitive disorders, and commensurate with the severity of the disease, rather than to disturbed emotional processes (Dermody et al, 2016, Kumfor et al, 2014Ramanan et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Very few tasks assessing affective ToM have involved reasoning processes. Using a visual task that minimized the overall cognitive demand, a recent study highlighted a deficit in affective mental state attribution in patients with AD (Synn et al, 2018). Supplementary analyses taking into account scores on a vocabulary task showed that the patients' performances on the affective ToM question of the task improved to be then similar to controls.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of context in affective theory of mind in Alzheimer's disease

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Affective theory of mind (ToM) is defined as the ability to deal with affective mental states. Attributing an affective mental state from a facial expression relies mainly on processes that allow information in the environment to be perceived and decoded. Reasoning processes are required when information is not directly available in the environment (e.g., when making an affective mental state attribution in a social situation where there is no visible facial expression of emotion). Although facial emotion decoding deficits have been reported in Alzheimer's disease (AD), few studies have assessed emotional reasoning processes. Long-term social knowledge may also contribute to mental state attribution, given its involvement in social situations, but the links between these two domains have not yet been properly explored. The aim of the present study was therefore to assess both decoding and reasoning processes in AD, as well as the effect of context on emotion attribution (i.e., whether prior presentation of a congruent vs. noncongruent social situation influences emotion recognition from faces). We also aimed to improve current understanding of the relationship between ToM processes and social knowledge. Participants were 20 patients with AD, 20 healthy older individuals, and 20 healthy young individuals. They performed three tasks testing ToM: a context task (emotion attribution in a social situation); a face task (facial emotion recognition); and a context-face task (determining whether the facial emotion was consistent with the emotion inferred from the social situation, e.g., an embarrassing situation followed by a proud face). All participants underwent a neuropsychological battery that included an assessment of social norm knowledge (e.g., determining whether it is socially acceptable to phone in a church). Results showed deficits in the patients with AD for decoding emotions from faces and for reasoning about emotions inferred from a social context. Patients were found to consider contextual information in such a way that congruency either helped or hindered the decoding of stimuli in the environment. As expected, we found that ToM abilities were linked to social norm knowledge. Overall, our findings suggest that patients with AD have difficulty attributing emotional mental states, and deficits in social norm knowledge and the presence of incongruent information may heighten this difficulty.

show abstract

“…Structural and functional abnormalities of the cerebellum are present in numerous developmental and acquired neurological conditions, such as developmental dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders, alcohol‐related brain damage, movement disorders (eg, Friedreich ataxia, Parkinson disease, Huntington disease), dementia (eg, Alzheimer disease [AD], dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia), and psychiatric disorders . The contribution of the cerebellum to motor coordination and motor planning is well known, but many studies have downplayed its involvement in other domains despite the mounting evidence over the past 30 years (eg, language, social cognition, interoception).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%