Neuropsychologia
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Theory of Mind (ToM) forms an integral component of socially skilled behavior, and is critical for attaining developmentally appropriate goals. The protracted development of ToM is mediated by increasing connectivity between regions of the anatomically distributed 'mentalizing network', and may be vulnerable to disruption from pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI). The present study aimed to evaluate the post-acute effects of TBI on first-order ToM, and examine relations between ToM and both local and global indices of macrostructural damage detected using susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI). 104 children and adolescents with TBI and 43 age-matched typically developing (TD) controls underwent magnetic resonance imaging including a susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) sequence 2-8 weeks post-injury and were assessed on cognitive ToM tasks at 6-months after injury. ⋯ Moreover, impairments in ToM were related to diffuse neuropathology, and parietal lobe lesions. Our findings support the vulnerability of the immature social brain network to disruption from TBI, and suggest that global macrostructural damage commonly associated with traumatic axonal injury (TAI) may contribute to structural disconnection of anatomically distributed regions that underlie ToM. This study suggests that SWI may be a valuable imaging biomarker to predict outcome and recovery of social cognition after pediatric TBI.
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Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder characterized by frontal and temporal lobe atrophy primarily affecting social cognition and emotion, including loss of empathy. Many consider empathy to be a multidimensional construct, including cognitive empathy (the ability to adopt and understand another's perspective) and emotional empathy (the capacity to share another's emotional experience). Cognitive and emotional empathy deficits have been associated with bvFTD; however, little is known regarding the performance of patients with bvFTD on behavioural measures of emotional empathy, and whether empathic responses differ for negative versus positive stimuli. ⋯ The results suggest that patients with bvFTD show a global deficit in cognitive empathy, and deficient emotional empathy for negative, but not positive, experiences. Further, a generalized emotional processing impairment for negative stimuli was observed, which could contribute to the emotional empathy deficit. This work highlights potential treatment targets and a means to assess the impact of novel therapies on socioemotional impairment in bvFTD.