You stole my food! Eating alterations in frontotemporal dementia.
Patients with different types of dementia may exhibit pathological eating habits, including food fads, hyperphagia, or even ingestion of inanimate objects. Several findings reveal that such eating alterations are more common in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) than other types of dementia. Moreover, eating alterations may differ between the two variants of the disease, namely the behavioral variant and semantic dementia (SD). In this review, we summarized evidences regarding four areas: eating and body weight alterations in FTD, the most common assessment methods, anatomical correlates of eating disorders, and finally, proposed underlying mechanisms. An increasing understanding of the factors that contribute to eating abnormalities may allow first, a better comprehension of the clinical features of the disease and second, shed light on the mechanism underlying eating behaviors in the normal population.
a Area of Neuroscience , SISSA , Trieste , Italy.
Marilena
M
Aiello
b Department of Neurology and Laboratory of Neuroscience , IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Dino Ferrari Centre , Milan , Italy.|c Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation , Università degli Studi di Milano , Milan , Italy.
Vincenzo
V
Silani
a Area of Neuroscience , SISSA , Trieste , Italy.
Raffaella I
RI
Rumiati
D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D057180:Frontotemporal Dementia / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans
Frontotemporal dementia; body weight; eating disorders; hyperorality