Werner K H, Roberts N A, Rosen H J, Dean D L, Kramer J H, Weiner M W, Miller B L, Levenson R W
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1650, USA.
Neurology. 2007 Jul 10;69(2):148-55. doi: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000265589.32060.d3.
Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is associated with a profound decline in social and emotional behavior; however, current understanding regarding the specific aspects of emotional functioning that are preserved and disrupted is limited.
To assess preservation of function and deficits in two aspects of emotional processing (emotional reactivity and emotion recognition) in FTLD.
Twenty-eight FTLD patients were compared with 16 controls in emotional reactivity (self-reported emotional experience, emotional facial behavior, and autonomic nervous system response to film stimuli) and emotion recognition (ability to identify a target emotion of fear, happy, or sad experienced by film characters). Additionally, the neural correlates of emotional reactivity and emotion recognition were investigated.
FTLD patients were comparable to controls in 1) emotional reactivity to the fear, happy, and sad film clips and 2) emotion recognition for the happy film clip. However, FTLD patients were significantly impaired compared with controls in emotion recognition for the fear and sad film clips. Volumetric analyses revealed that deficits in emotion recognition were associated with decreased lobar volumes in the frontal and temporal lobes.
The socioemotional decline typically seen in frontotemporal lobar degeneration patients may result more from an inability to process certain emotions in other people than from deficits in emotional reactivity.
额颞叶变性（FTLD）与社交和情感行为的严重衰退有关；然而，目前对于情感功能中哪些具体方面得以保留以及哪些方面受到破坏的理解有限。
评估FTLD患者在情感加工的两个方面（情感反应性和情感识别）的功能保留情况及缺陷。
将28例FTLD患者与16名对照者在情感反应性（自我报告的情感体验、情感面部行为以及对电影刺激的自主神经系统反应）和情感识别（识别电影角色所经历的恐惧、快乐或悲伤等目标情绪的能力）方面进行比较。此外，还研究了情感反应性和情感识别的神经相关性。
FTLD患者在以下两方面与对照者相当：1）对恐惧、快乐和悲伤电影片段的情感反应性；2）对快乐电影片段的情感识别。然而，与对照者相比，FTLD患者在对恐惧和悲伤电影片段的情感识别方面明显受损。体积分析显示，情感识别缺陷与额叶和颞叶的脑叶体积减小有关。
额颞叶变性患者中常见的社会情感衰退可能更多是由于无法处理他人的某些情感，而非情感反应性缺陷所致。
