. Envy and Schadenfreude: Legal, deservingness, and moral dimensions in frontotemporal dementia

SANTAMARÍA-GARCÍA, HERNANDO; SANTAMARÍA-GARCÍA, JOSÉ; BAEZ, SANDRA; REYES, PABLO; ARÉVALO, ANALÍA; SANTACRUZ-ESCUDERO, JOSÉ; MATALLANA, DIANA; MANES, FACUNDO; SIGMAN, MARIANO; SEDEÑO, LUCAS; GARCÍA, ADOLFO M.; IBÁÑEZ, AGUSTÍN

Sídney

Conferencia; 11th International Conference on Frontotemporal Dementias; 2018

Moral emotions (e.g., Schadenfreude and envy) are critically involved in the ecological complexity of everyday interactions. Whereas previous research has explored them via correlational imaging techniques, here we aim to profit from a relevant neurodegeneration model to disentangle the brain regions engaged in three dimensions of Schadenfreude and envy: deservingness, morality, and legality. We tested patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), patients with Alzheimer?s disease (AD) ?as a contrastive neurodegeneration model?, and healthy controls (HCs) on a novel task highlighting each of these dimensions. BvFTD patients showed higher scores than AD and HCs on all dimensions for both emotions. We also found an association between envy and Schadenfreude scores, and greater deficits in social cognition, inhibitory control, and behavior disturbances in bvFTD patients. Neuroanatomical findings from bvFTD patients and HCs confirmed the partially dissociable nature of the moral emotions? experiences. In all subjects, Schadenfreude and envy were associated with the ventral striatum and the anterior cingulated cortex, respectively. We also found association between moral and legal transgression and areas implicated in emotional appraisal (amygdala and parahippocampus). BvFTD patients presented a negative association between increased Schadenfreude and envy across dimensions and critical regions supporting social-value rewards and social-moral processes (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, angular gyrus and precuneus). This study provides lesion-based evidence for the multidimensional nature of the emotional experiences of envy and Schadenfreude. Our results offer new insights into the mechanisms subsuming complex emotions and moral cognition in bvFTD, and also present these affective dimensions as new potential hallmark for bvFTD diagnosis and progression. Partially supported by grants from CONICET, CONICYT/FONDECYT Regular (1170010), FONDAP 15150012, INECO Foundation, and the Inter-American Development Bank.