INCYT   25562
INSTITUTO DE NEUROCIENCIA COGNITIVA Y TRASLACIONAL
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Integration of intention and outcome for moral judgment in frontotemporal dementia: Brain structural signatures
Autor/es:
KANSKE P; REYES P; VIGLIECCA NS; IBAÑEZ AM; MATALLANA D; SLACHEVSKY A; MATALLANA D; TORRALVA T; SLACHEVSKY A; TORRALVA T; BAEZ S; MONTAÑES P; BAEZ S; MATUS C; MONTAÑES P; MANES F; MATUS C; MANES F; KANSKE P; REYES P; VIGLIECCA NS; IBAÑEZ AM
Revista:
NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES
Editorial:
KARGER
Referencias:
Lugar: Basel; Año: 2016 vol. 16 p. 206 - 217
ISSN:
1660-2854
Resumen:
BACKGROUND: Moral judgment has been proposed to rely on a distributed brainnetwork. This function is impaired in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), a condition involving damage to some regions of this network. However,no studies have investigated moral judgment in bvFTD via structural neuroimaging.METHODS: We compared the performance of 21 bvFTD patients and 19 controls on amoral judgment task involving scenarios that discriminate between thecontributions of intentions and outcomes. Voxel-based morphometry was used toassess (a) the atrophy pattern in bvFTD patients, (b) associations between graymatter (GM) volume and moral judgments, and (c) structural differences betweenbvFTD subgroups (patients with relatively preserved moral judgment and patientswith severer moral judgment impairments).RESULTS: Patients judged attempted harm as more permissible and accidental harmas less permissible than controls. The groups´ performance on accidental harm was associated with GM volume in the precuneus. In controls, it was also associated with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). Also, both groups´ performance on attempted harm was associated with GM volume in the temporoparietal junction. Patients exhibiting worse performance displayed smaller GM volumes in the precuneus and temporal pole. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that moral judgment abnormalities in bvFTD are associated with impaired integration of intentions and outcomes, which depends on an extended brain network. In bvFTD, moral judgment seems to critically depend on areas beyond the VMPFC.