Brain Networks Supporting Social Cognition in Dementia
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SOCIAL COGNITION (J BEADLE, SECTION EDITOR)
Brain Networks Supporting Social Cognition in Dementia Katherine P. Rankin 1,2 Accepted: 27 October 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Purpose of Review This review examines the literature during the past 5 years (2015–2020) as it describes the contribution of three key intrinsically connected networks (ICN) to the social cognition changes that occur in various dementia syndromes. Recent Findings The salience network (SN) is selectively vulnerable in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), and underpins changes in socioemotional sensitivity, attention, and engagement, with specific symptoms resulting from altered connectivity with the insula, amygdala, and medial pulvinar of the thalamus. Personalized hedonic evaluations of social and emotional experiences and concepts are made via the anterior temporofrontal semantic appraisal network (SAN), selectively vulnerable in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA). Recent research supports this network’s role in engendering empathic accuracy by providing precision to socioemotional concepts via hedonic tuning. The default mode network (DMN), focally affected in Alzheimer’s disease syndrome (AD), supports social cognition by providing context from learned experiences to generate more accurate inferences about others’ thoughts, emotions, and intentions. Summary The focal breakdown of these normal canonical intrinsically connected brain networks during neurodegeneration sheds light on disease processes as well as on important mechanisms involved in healthy socioemotional functioning, thus contributing important insights to the larger field of social affective neuroscience. Keywords Social cognition . Emotion . Frontotemporal dementia . Alzheimer’s disease . Semantic variant primary progressive aphasia . Brain networks . Functional connectivity
Introduction It has been over 10 years since the breakthrough discovery that the major neurodegenerative dementia syndromes each result from focal, selective vulnerability of the brain’s intrinsically connected networks (ICNs) [1]. In the time since, clinical research investigations have increasingly moved from single-structure explanations for dementia patients’ cognitive and behavioral changes to a more holistic network-based view. This shift in interpretive approach has been particularly fruitful as the field develops a richer understanding of the This article is part of the Topical Collection on Social Cognition * Katherine P. Rankin [email protected] 1
Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
2
The Memory and Aging Center, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, Suite 190, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
neural etiologies of socioemotional symptoms in neurodegenerative disease. A key example has been the recognition that the focal degeneration of the previously understudied “salience network” (SN) ICN [2] is the primary driver of the drastic socioemotional impairments seen in behavioral variant frontotemporal
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