Dreaming and cognition in patients with frontotemporal dysfunction
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Updated: May 31, 2026

Examining the Characteristics of Episodic Memory using Event-related Potentials in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: August 30, 2011
Teresa Paiva1, Paulo Bugalho, Carla Bentes
1Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon and CENC, Sleep Medicine Center, Lisboa, Portugal. teresapaiva@netcabo.pt
Abstract:
Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) and temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) have hallucinations and mild cognitive dysfunction. The objective of this work was to study dreams in PD and TLE patients using a common functional model of dream production involving the limbic and paralimbic structures. Dreams were characterised in early-stage PD (19 males) and TLE patients (52) with dream diaries classified by the Hall van de Castle system and were compared with matched controls. In PD, there were significant differences between patients' dreams and those of controls: animals, physical aggression, and a befriender were more common in patients, and aggressor and bodily misfortunes were less common. The dreams of patients with frontal dysfunction showed more aggressive features. TLE patients had lower recall than PD patients and a higher proportion of dreams involving family and familiar settings, lower proportions involving success, and a higher incidence of frontal dysfunction. The dreams of PD and TLE patients share important features.
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