Abnormal psychophysiological responses to emotional stimuli in dementia

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Abnormal psychophysiological responses to emotional stimuli in dementia Fiona Kumfor1, 2*, Jessica L. Hazelton1, Jacqueline A. Rushby3, John R. Hodges2, 4 and Olivier Piguet1, 2 1 University of Sydney, School of Psychology & Brain and Mind Sciences, Australia 2 Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (ARC), Australia 3 University of New South Wales, School of Psychology, Australia 4 University of Sydney, Sydney Medical School and Brain and Mind Sciences, Australia AIMS: Early theories of emotion processing propose that autonomic processing and cognitive appraisal of emotions are closely interlinked, with the perception of one’s own emotional state and recognition of emotion in others, occurring secondary to the experience of somatic sensations. Patients with frontotemporal dementia show profound social cognition deficits and atrophy in regions known to be important in autonomic emotional responses (e.g., insula, amygdala, prefrontal cortex). Here, we aimed to investigate whether psychophysiological responding to emotional stimuli is abnormal in frontotemporal dementia syndromes. METHOD: Twenty-three behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) patients, 14 semantic dementia (SD) patients and 22 healthy older controls were recruited. Participants viewed 6 x 2 min video clips which were either emotionally positive, neutral or negative. Surface facial (zygomaticus and corrugator) electromyography (EMG), skin conductance level and pulse were simultaneously recorded using an 8/35 Powerlab Data Acquisition System. RESULTS: Unlike controls, patients with bvFTD did not show differential facial EMG responses according to emotion condition, whereas SD patients showed increased zygomaticus responses to both positive and neutral videos. Controls showed increased skin conductance levels when viewing positive and negative videos, however, both bvFTD and SD groups showed no change in skin conductance level across conditions. Finally, no differences in heart rate were found across groups, despite bvFTD patients showing elevated heart rate at rest. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that psychophysiological responses to emotional stimuli are abnormal in frontotemporal dementia, however, the nature of these differences varies across syndromes. While bvFTD patients show an overall dampening of responses, SD patients appear to show heightened physiological responses which are inconsistent with the emotional content of stimuli. These results identify potential mechanisms for the abnormal social behaviour in bvFTD and SD, and demonstrate that psychophysiological responses are an important mechanism underpinning normal socioemotional functioning. Keywords: Frontotemporal Dementia, emotion, electromyography (EMG), Skin conductance, Heart Rate, Psychophysiology Conference: ASP2017: 27th Annual Meeting for the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Parramatta, Australia, 29 Nov - 1 Dec, 2017. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Abstract (General) Citation: Kumfor F, Hazelton JL, Rushby JA, Hodges JR and Piguet O (2019). Abnormal psychophysiological responses to emotional stimuli in dementia. Conference Abstract: ASP2017: 27th Annual Meeting for the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.224.00029 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 05 Oct 2017; Published Online: 25 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Fiona Kumfor, University of Sydney, School of Psychology & Brain and Mind Sciences, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia, fiona.kumfor@sydney.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Fiona Kumfor Jessica L Hazelton Jacqueline A Rushby John R Hodges Olivier Piguet Google Fiona Kumfor Jessica L Hazelton Jacqueline A Rushby John R Hodges Olivier Piguet Google Scholar Fiona Kumfor Jessica L Hazelton Jacqueline A Rushby John R Hodges Olivier Piguet PubMed Fiona Kumfor Jessica L Hazelton Jacqueline A Rushby John R Hodges Olivier Piguet Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.