Summary: Frontotemporal dementia, affecting about 3% of dementia patients in Sweden, is characterized by a loss of empathy that challenges patients and their families.
Using functional MRI, researchers found that patients showed no activation in brain networks associated with empathy when viewing distressing images, unlike healthy individuals. This lack of brain activity strongly correlated with caregivers’ assessments of reduced empathy, confirming a link between brain function and behavior.
The findings may improve understanding of this condition and help distinguish it from other psychiatric disorders with similar symptoms, like psychopathy.
Key Facts:
- Frontotemporal dementia patients show no brain activation in empathy networks.
- Brain activity correlates strongly with caregivers’ reports of empathy loss.
- Empathy deficits complicate social interactions and care decisions.
Source: Karolinska Institute
Around 25,000 Swedes are affected by dementia every year. Of these, about three percent are diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. The disease is difficult to diagnose, but one of its characteristics is that sufferers lose the ability to empathize, which can lead to problems for them, and not least for their relatives.
In the current study, led by researchers Olof Lindberg at Karolinska Institutet and Alexander Santillo at Lund University, 28 patients diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia were analyzed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
The researchers were able to see how the subjects’ brain activity was affected when they were shown images of hands being penetrated by needles, which normally activates the parts of the brain that tend to react to the experience of suffering or pain in others.
The study shows that people with frontotemporal dementia do not display any activation of the frontal brain networks that are activated in the control group of age-matched healthy individuals.
“What is particularly interesting is that we have been able to relate this measure of brain activity in patients to how carers rate their lack of empathy. There turned out to be a strong correlation, and that’s important. It shows that what happens in the brain is connected to the people’s behavior,” says Olof Lindberg.
Dementia usually means memory problems, but frontotemporal dementia with a loss of ability to empathize with other people can resemble other conditions with empathy problems in psychiatry, such as psychopathy. Olof Lindberg believes that the new findings on how brain activity is affected will increase understanding of the disease.
“This captures a key symptom in patients, and with a lack of empathy, it naturally becomes more difficult to act socially. So, it can affect the judgement of whether to be cared for at home, for example.”
The study was carried out in collaboration between Skåne University Hospital, Norrland University Hospital and Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge.
About this dementia research news
Author: Press Office
Source: Karolinska Institute
Contact: Press Office – Karolinska Institute
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Altered empathy processing in frontotemporal dementia” by Olof Lindberg et al. JAMA Network Open
Abstract
Altered empathy processing in frontotemporal dementia
Loss of empathy is a core symptom of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). In particular, the affective aspect of empathy appears to be independent of decrease in the other socioemotional abilities and general cognition in bvFTD.
We used an established functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) paradigm to assess bvFTD-related alterations in brain responses during empathy for pain (EFP) in a case-control study.
