Social cognition and emotional assessment differentiates frontotemporal dementia from depression
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a neurodegenerative disease that is clinically characterised by progressive behavioural changes and social interpersonal dysfunctions. Its diagnosis remains a clinical challenge, and depression is one of the main causes of misdiagnoses due to the prevalence of apathy in bvFTD. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the Social Cognition and Emotional Assessment (SEA) and the mini-SEA for differentiating bvFTD from major depressive disorder (MDD). METHODS: Scores for the SEA and mini-SEA for 37 patients with bvFTD (divided into subgroups of 17 with early bvFTD and 20 with moderate bvFTD according to the normal range of the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale), 19 MDD patients and 30 control subjects were compared to define the discrimination power of these tools compared with other standard neuropsychological tests. RESULTS: SEA and mini-SEA scores were significantly lower for both the early and moderate bvFTD groups compared with control subjects and the MDD group, and very few scores overlapped between patients in the bvFTD subgroups and patients in the MDD and control subgroups. SEA and mini-SEA scores distinguished early bvFTD from MDD with sensitivity and specificity rates above 94%. CONCLUSION: Unlike standard executive neuropsychological tests, SEA and the mini-SEA can differentiate MDD from bvFTD in the early stages of the disease. The mini-SEA is an easy tool that can be utilised in neurological or psychiatric departments.
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Several studies have found that emotion recognition may discriminate bvFTD from late-life depression.
“Accordingly, several studies have found that emotion recognition may discriminate bvFTD from late-life depression (Bertoux et al. , 2012; Chiu et al. , 2018).”
From Recommendations to distinguish behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia from psychiatric disorders (2020) · cites this paper as Bertoux et al. , 2012
The table of Social Cognition and Emotional Assessment performances reports significant emotion-recognition differences between patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and those with early or moderate bvFTD (p<0.0001), supporting its potential to discriminate the groups. However, the Methods identify the comparison group as patients with MDD, not specifically late-life depression; Table 1 gives ages of 51–82 and does not establish age at depression onset. Page numbers are unavailable in the indexed passages. (LLM, conf=0.83)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredA few approaches have shown potential to improve diagnostic accuracy in small scale studies, including systematic application of clinical scales, neuropsychiatric consultation, social cognitive batteries, CSF markers, and morphometric image processing.
“A few approaches have shown potential to improve diagnostic accuracy in small scale studies, including the systematic application of clinical scales (Krudop et al. , 2015), neuropsychiatric consultation (Krudop et al. , 2017), social cognitive batteries (Bertoux et al. , 2012), CSF markers (Vijverberg et al. , 2017 a ), and morphometric image processing (Moller et al. , 2016).”
From Recommendations to distinguish behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia from psychiatric disorders (2020) · cites this paper as Bertoux et al., 2012
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- Authors
- Bertoux, M., Delavest, M., de Souza, L. C., Funkiewiez, A., Lépine, J.-P., Fossati, P., Dubois, B., & Sarazin, M.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Fondation FondaMental (FR)
- Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Bertoux, Maxime
- Venue
- Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2012-01-29
- Volume
- 83
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 411-416
- ISSN
- 0022-3050 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-330X
- OpenAlex
- W2104550791
- Cited by
- 204
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 7.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Historical and Modern Theater Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Keywords
- behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, major depressive disorder, differential diagnosis, apathy, social cognition, emotional assessment, early diagnosis, sensitivity and specificity
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Depression, Major Depressive Disorder, Depressive Disorder, Major, Diagnosis, Differential, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests, Personality Assessment, ROC Curve, Sensitivity and Specificity, Social Behavior, Frontotemporal Dementia
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