Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Publication Date

5-11-2023

Journal

Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Bipolar disorder type 1 (BD1) and behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) share similar behavioral and cognitive symptoms, rendering the differential diagnosis between them a clinical challenge. We investigated the accuracy of social cognition (SC) measures to differentiate bvFTD from BD.

METHODS: We included three groups of participants: early-onset BD1 (in remission, n=20), bvFTD (n=18), and cognitively healthy controls (HC) (n=40), matched for age, schooling, and sex. All participants underwent cognitive assessment, including the Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) and Modified Faux-Pas (mFP) tests, which assess mentalizing.

RESULTS: Compared to HC, BD1 and bvFTD patients underperformed on both SC measures. BD1 and bvFTD did not differ regarding FER or mFP total scores, although patients with bvFTD had significantly higher difficulties than those in the BD1 group to detect social faux-pas (p < 0.001, d = 1.35).

CONCLUSION: BD1 and bvFTD share deficits in the core SC functions. These findings should be considered in the development of tasks aiming to improve clinical differentiation between the two disorders.

Keywords

Humans, Bipolar Disorder, Frontotemporal Dementia, Social Cognition, Neuropsychological Tests, Cognition, Alzheimer Disease, Dementia, cognitive impairment, executive functioning, mania, mood disorder

Comments

PMID: 36749822

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