Prosocial capabilities in Alzheimer's patients.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the decision making of Alzheimer's patients in a simple, classic game focusing on their capabilities to implement social norms and common social preferences.


METHODS
Patients with Stage I (very mild and mild) Alzheimer's disease (AD) were asked to participate in a dictator game, a type of game in which a subject has to decide how to allocate a certain amount of money between himself and another person.


RESULTS
When we compared the results of treatments involving AD patients (at an early stage) with those of identical treatments involving patients with mild cognitive impairment or healthy elderly controls, with similar ages and social backgrounds, we did not find statistically significant differences.


CONCLUSIONS
This finding suggests that Stage I AD patients are as capable of making decisions involving basic social norms and preferences as other individuals of their age. Whatever brain structures are affected by the disease, they do not appear to influence, at this early stage, the neural basis for cooperation-enhancing social interactions.
Bosch-Domènech
Antoni
A
Departament d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. antoni.bosch@upf.edu
Nagel
Rosemarie
R
Sánchez-Andrés
Juan V
JV
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D016743:Mental Competency / Q000523:psychology*; D010358:Patient Participation / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior