Different Kinds of Impulsivity in Patients with Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia (bvFTD) (P07.193)

TERESA TORRALVA; EZEQUIEL GLEICHGERRCHT; MARIA ROCA; FACUNDO MANES

Congreso; Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology; 2012; 2012

Background Behavioral disorders constitute a major clinical feature of FTD. Patients frequently exhibit a wide array of behavioral disturbances such as inflexibility, disinhibition and impulsivity, distractibility and lack of persistence, as well as perseverative behavior. These behavioral abnormalities are associated with cognitive deficits involving executive functioning. Orbitofrontal dysfunction has been demonstrated to lie at the core of FTD. We hypothesized that orbitofrontal dysfunction provides a unifying framework to explain the origin of similar behavioral / cognitive symptoms. Design/Methods: Patients with established diagnosis of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD; n = 12) and mild Alzheimer Disease (AD; n = 12), were assessed with cognitive tests and behavioral questionnaires aimed at tapping on different aspects of impulsivity. Results: Compared to AD, bvFTD patients showed significantly lower scores on the motor and verbal inhibitory control subtests of the INECO Frontal Screening (IFS), more perseverative errors in the WCST, a worse performance on the IOWA Gambling Task (IGT), and they committed more commission errors in a complex computerized test of control inhibition. In behavioral questionnaires, they presented elevated scores in the subscales of disinhibition, and dysexecutive, which were strongly correlated with performance on the executive tests. An Eating Behavior Questionnaire correlated only to the verbal inhibitory control subtest.enviar mensaje