Cardiac responses to viewing facial emotion differentiate frontotemporal dementias

摘要: Objective To establish proof-of-principle for the use of heart rate responses as objective measures degraded emotional reactivity across frontotemporal dementia spectrum, and to demonstrate specific relationships between cardiac autonomic anatomical patterns neurodegeneration. Methods Thirty-two patients representing all major syndromes 19 healthy older controls performed an emotion recognition task, viewing dynamic, naturalistic videos facial emotions while ECG was recorded. Cardiac indexed increase in interbeat interval at onset emotions. Gray matter associations were assessed using voxel-based morphometry patients' brain MR images. Results Relative controls, patient groups had impaired identification, whereas attenuated those with predominant fronto-insular atrophy (behavioral variant nonfluent primary progressive aphasia), but preserved focused on anterior temporal lobes (right semantic aphasia). Impaired correlated gray a fronto-cingulo-insular network that overlapped correlates cognitive processing. Interpretation Autonomic indices dissociate from categorization ability, stratifying showing promise novel biomarkers. Attenuated others suggest core pathophysiological mechanism blunting interpersonal these diseases.