TY - JOUR
T1 - Intelligence and executive functions in frontotemporal dementia
AU - Roca, María
AU - Manes, Facundo
AU - Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel
AU - Watson, Peter
AU - Ibáñez, Agustín
AU - Thompson, Russell
AU - Torralva, Teresa
AU - Duncan, John
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by Medical Research Council (UK) intramural program MC-A060-5PQ10 and by grants FONDECYT ( 1130920 ), CONICET and INECO Foundation.
PY - 2013/3
Y1 - 2013/3
N2 - Recently (Roca et al. (2010), we used the relationship with general intelligence (Spearman's g) to define two sets of frontal lobe or "executive" tests. For one group, including Wisconsin card sorting and verbal fluency, reduction in g entirely explained the deficits found in frontal patients. For another group, including tests of social cognition and multitasking, frontal deficits remained even after correction for g. Preliminary evidence suggested a link of the latter tasks to more anterior frontal regions. Here we develop this distinction in the context of behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), a disorder which progressively affects frontal lobe cortices. In bvFTD, some executive tests, including tests of social cognition and multitasking, decline from the early stage of the disease, while others, including classical executive tests such as Wisconsin card sorting, verbal fluency or Trail Making Test part B, show deficits only later on. Here we show that, while deficits in the classical executive tests are entirely explained by g, deficits in the social cognition and multitasking tests are not. The results suggest a relatively selective cognitive deficit at mild stages of the disease, followed by more widespread cognitive decline well predicted by g.
AB - Recently (Roca et al. (2010), we used the relationship with general intelligence (Spearman's g) to define two sets of frontal lobe or "executive" tests. For one group, including Wisconsin card sorting and verbal fluency, reduction in g entirely explained the deficits found in frontal patients. For another group, including tests of social cognition and multitasking, frontal deficits remained even after correction for g. Preliminary evidence suggested a link of the latter tasks to more anterior frontal regions. Here we develop this distinction in the context of behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), a disorder which progressively affects frontal lobe cortices. In bvFTD, some executive tests, including tests of social cognition and multitasking, decline from the early stage of the disease, while others, including classical executive tests such as Wisconsin card sorting, verbal fluency or Trail Making Test part B, show deficits only later on. Here we show that, while deficits in the classical executive tests are entirely explained by g, deficits in the social cognition and multitasking tests are not. The results suggest a relatively selective cognitive deficit at mild stages of the disease, followed by more widespread cognitive decline well predicted by g.
KW - Executive functions
KW - Fluid intelligence
KW - Frontotemporal dementia
KW - Multitasking
KW - Theory of mind
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84873508943&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.01.008
DO - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.01.008
M3 - Article
C2 - 23347963
AN - SCOPUS:84873508943
SN - 0028-3932
VL - 51
SP - 725
EP - 730
JO - Neuropsychologia
JF - Neuropsychologia
IS - 4
ER -