title: Mapping levels of theory of mind in Alzheimer's disease: a preliminary study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Research on Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to understand behaviour based on mental state representation, has shifted towards a life span perspective in typical and atypical conditions (dementia).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study is to investigate the presence and the features of ToM decay in early Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients compared to healthy controls adopting a neurodevelopmental stance.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixteen AD patients and 16 healthy controls were submitted to an increasing complexity ToM battery, tapping ToM precursors, standard first- and second-order false beliefs and advanced ToM tasks (Eyes Test and strange stories).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results underline a similar pattern of increasing difficulty of the tasks that explore ToM abilities in both the groups. They also confirm the presence of a strong gap in performance between the CTR and the AD groups, especially in the more complex ToM tasks, whereas there is no significant difference between the two groups in the first level of reasoning about beliefs (first-order false belief). The impairment in specific cognitive functions (i.e. memory and executive functions) seems to correlate with the decline in the most complex mentalistic abilities.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study identifies a specific pattern of deterioration in ToM abilities in AD patients, following backwards developmental steps typical of the acquisition of mentalizing abilities, where the most complex ToM levels are impaired, whereas the intermediate and the simplest ones are preserved.
authors.affiliation: Research Unit on Theory of Mind, Department of Psychology, Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Castelli
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pini
authors.forename: Margherita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alberoni
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Liverta-Sempio
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Baglio
authors.forename: Davide
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Massaro
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marchetti
authors.forename: Raffello
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nemni
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011581:Psychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D056345:Theory of Mind