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Altered emotional morality in frontotemporal dementia.
Mario F Mendez1, Jill S Shapira
1Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California at Los Angeles V.A. Greater Los Angeles Healthcare Center, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90073, USA. mmendez@UCLA.edu
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry
|June 6, 2009
Summary
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients struggle with emotional moral judgments due to right hemisphere brain changes. This suggests FTD impacts the brain's morality network, leading to calculated responses instead of emotional ones.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Moral Psychology
Background:
- Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is characterized by abnormal social behavior and potential sociopathy.
- FTD offers insights into the neurobiology of moral behavior.
- This study investigates the neurological basis of altered moral judgments in FTD patients.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neurobiological underpinnings of altered moral judgments in patients with Frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
- To compare moral reasoning and emotional responses in FTD patients, Alzheimer's disease patients, and healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- Administered moral knowledge inventories and moral dilemmas (reasoned and emotional) to 21 FTD patients, 21 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, and 21 controls.
- Compared FTD patient performance to neuroimaging findings.
- Assessed moral decision-making in contexts involving direct harm.
Main Results:
- All groups retained moral knowledge and reasoning abilities.
- FTD patients exhibited significantly altered emotional moral judgments compared to AD patients and controls.
- Altered moral judgments in FTD patients correlated with right hemisphere frontotemporal involvement.
Conclusions:
- FTD patients show decreased emotional responsiveness and a tendency towards calculated moral judgments.
- Ventromedial frontal dysfunction in FTD may underlie these disturbances.
- Findings support a right-hemisphere-dominant 'morality' network in the brain.
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