title: Primary empathy deficits in frontotemporal dementia.
abstract: Loss of empathy is an early central symptom and diagnostic criterion of the behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Although changes in empathy are evident and strongly affect the social functioning of bvFTD patients, few studies have directly investigated this issue by means of experimental paradigms. The current study assessed multiple components of empathy (affective, cognitive and moral) in bvFTD patients. We also explored whether the loss of empathy constitutes a primary deficit of bvFTD or whether it is explained by impairments in executive functions (EF) or other social cognition domains. Thirty-seven bvFTD patients with early/mild stages of the disease and 30 healthy control participants were assessed with a task that involves the perception of intentional and accidental harm. Participants were also evaluated on emotion recognition, theory of mind (ToM), social norms knowledge and several EF domains. BvFTD patients presented deficits in affective, cognitive and moral aspects of empathy. However, empathic concern was the only aspect primarily affected in bvFTD that was neither related nor explained by deficits in EF or other social cognition domains. Deficits in the cognitive and moral aspects of empathy seem to depend on EF, emotion recognition and ToM. Our findings highlight the importance of using tasks depicting real-life social scenarios because of their greater sensitivity in the assessment of bvFTD. Moreover, our results contribute to the understanding of primary and intrinsic empathy deficits of bvFTD and have important theoretical and clinical implications.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) & Institute of Neuroscience, Favaloro University Buenos Aires, Argentina ; UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University Santiago, Chile ; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baez
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) & Institute of Neuroscience, Favaloro University Buenos Aires, Argentina ; UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University Santiago, Chile ; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) Buenos Aires, Argentina ; Australian Research Council (ACR) Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Facundo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Manes
authors.affiliation: UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University Santiago, Chile ; Laboratory of Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, Universidad Diego Portales Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Huepe
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) & Institute of Neuroscience, Favaloro University Buenos Aires, Argentina ; UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Torralva
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) & Institute of Neuroscience, Favaloro University Buenos Aires, Argentina ; UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fiorentino
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cologne Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Fabian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Richter
authors.affiliation: UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University Santiago, Chile ; Laboratory of Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, Universidad Diego Portales Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Huepe-Artigas
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) & Institute of Neuroscience, Favaloro University Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Jesica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental, Facultad de Medicina, Centro de Memoria y Cognición Intellectus, Instituto de Envejecimiento, Universidad Javeriana, Hospital San Ignacio Bogotá, Colombia ; Universidad Nacional de Colombia Bogotá, Colombia.
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Montañes
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental, Facultad de Medicina, Centro de Memoria y Cognición Intellectus, Instituto de Envejecimiento, Universidad Javeriana, Hospital San Ignacio Bogotá, Colombia.
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Reyes
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental, Facultad de Medicina, Centro de Memoria y Cognición Intellectus, Instituto de Envejecimiento, Universidad Javeriana, Hospital San Ignacio Bogotá, Colombia.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Matallana
authors.affiliation: National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) Buenos Aires, Argentina ; Instituto de Humanidades (IDH) de la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba Córdoba, Argentina.
authors.forename: Nora S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Vigliecca
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Chicago Chicago, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Decety
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) & Institute of Neuroscience, Favaloro University Buenos Aires, Argentina ; UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Diego Portales University Santiago, Chile ; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) Buenos Aires, Argentina ; Australian Research Council (ACR) Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Sydney, NSW, Australia ; Universidad Autonoma del Caribe Barranquilla, Colombia.
authors.forename: Agustin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ibanez
keywords: behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia; empathic concern; empathy; executive functions; moral judgment; social cognition