Moral Emotions and Their Brain Structural Correlates Across Neurodegenerative Disorders
Journal
Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
ISSN
1387-2877
1875-8908
Date Issued
2023
Author(s)
Sandra Baez
Catalina Trujillo-Llano
Leonardo Cruz de Souza
Patricia Lillo
Gonzalo Forno
Hernando Santamaría-García
Cecilia Okuma
Patricio Alegria
David Huepe
Agustín Ibáñez
Jean Decety
Andrea Slachevsky
Type
Resource Types::text::journal::journal article
Abstract
<jats:p>Background: Although social cognition is compromised in patients with neurodegenerative disorders such as behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), research on moral emotions and their neural correlates in these populations is scarce. No previous study has explored the utility of moral emotions, compared to and in combination with classical general cognitive state tools, to discriminate bvFTD from AD patients. Objective: To examine self-conscious (guilt and embarrassment) and other-oriented (pity and indignation) moral emotions, their subjective experience, and their structural brain underpinnings in bvFTD (n = 31) and AD (n = 30) patients, compared to healthy controls (n = 37). We also explored the potential utility of moral emotions measures to discriminate bvFTD from AD. Methods: We used a modified version of the Moral Sentiment Task measuring the participants’ accuracy scores and their emotional subjective experiences. Results: bvFTD patients exhibited greater impairments in self-conscious and other-oriented moral emotions as compared with AD patients and healthy controls. Moral emotions combined with general cognitive state tools emerged as useful measures to discriminate bvFTD from AD patients. In bvFTD patients, lower moral emotions scores were associated with lower gray matter volumes in caudate nucleus and inferior and middle temporal gyri. In AD, these scores were associated with lower gray matter volumes in superior and middle frontal gyri, middle temporal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and supramarginal gyrus. Conclusion: These findings contribute to a better understanding of moral emotion deficits across neurodegenerative disorders, highlighting the potential benefits of integrating this domain into the clinical assessment.</jats:p>
Subjects
alzheimer's disease
;
behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia
;
moral emotions
;
neural correlates
;
social cognition
;
alzheimer disease
;
brain
;
emotions
;
frontotemporal dementia
;
humans
;
magnetic resonance imaging
;
morals
;
neuropsychological tests
;
aged
;
alzheimer disease
;
article
;
caudate nucleus
;
controlled study
;
embarrassment
;
emotion
;
female
;
frontal variant frontotemporal dementia
;
gray matter volume
;
guilt
;
human
;
indignation
;
inferior parietal lobule
;
inferior temporal gyrus
;
major clinical study
;
male
;
middle frontal gyrus
;
middle temporal gyrus
;
personal experience
;
pity
;
superior frontal gyrus
;
supramarginal gyrus
;
brain
;
emotion
;
frontotemporal dementia
;
morality
;
neuropsychological assessment
;
nuclear magnetic resonance imaging
;
psychology