Confabulation, but not executive dysfunction discriminate AD from frontotemporal dementia.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Neurology

Background:

• Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are distinct neurodegenerative conditions.
• Executive function deficits are common in both AD and FTD.
• Confabulation, the production of false memories, is observed in various neurological conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare confabulation and executive function performance in patients with probable AD and probable FTD.
• To investigate the relationship between executive function deficits and confabulation in these patient groups.
• To determine if confabulation can serve as a clinical tool to differentiate between AD and FTD.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-two probable AD patients, 10 probable FTD patients, and 32 healthy controls were assessed.
• Executive functions were evaluated using the Modified Card Sorting test, verbal fluency, Cognitive Estimation, and Stroop tests.
• Confabulation was assessed using a modified Confabulation Battery across Episodic Memory, Semantic Memory, and Personal Future domains.

Main Results:

• Both AD and FTD patients exhibited significant impairments in executive functions, with no difference between the groups.
• Both patient groups confabulated, but FTD patients showed significantly higher rates of confabulation in Episodic Memory and Personal Future tasks.
• No correlation was found between executive function task performance and the tendency to confabulate.

Conclusions:

• Confabulation, rather than executive function deficits alone, appears to be a more significant differentiator between AD and FTD.
• Screening for confabulation and other memory distortions may aid in the clinical distinction between AD and FTD.
• These findings highlight the potential of confabulation assessment as a valuable diagnostic tool.