Gelmers Floor, Huitema Rients B, Scheenen Myrthe E, van Munster Barbara C, Spikman Jacoba M
Alzheimer Center Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Department of Neurology, Unit Neuropsychology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2025 May 27;20(5):e0324517. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0324517. eCollection 2025.
Certain subtypes of young onset dementia (YOD), such as the behavioural variant of FTD or the behavioural variant of AD (bvYOD), present with changes in social behaviour instead of memory impairments. These symptoms are often under-recognized, delaying the diagnosis and contributing to psychosocial problems. Impairments in social cognition (SC), an important affected domain in bvYOD, underlie these social behavioural changes. Especially emotional blunting and a lack of empathy in patients with bvYOD might be related to problematic social behaviour, such as risk-taking behaviour, which may potentially harm others. However, despite the importance of SC impairments in the diagnosis of YOD and the impact of SC impairments on social behaviour, there is a lack of valid and well normed measures for certain aspects of SC, such as emotion experience and empathy.
The YOD-RiSoCo study is an observational prospective cohort study, consisting of two separate, but related, studies. Study 1 includes 64 patients with bvYOD and 64 healthy controls to assess the sensitivity and validity of newly developed SC instruments for measuring emotion experience and empathy, by comparing their average group performance. Furthermore, validity of the new instruments will be assessed by analysing the associations of performances on these new tests with those on more traditional SC and other neurocognitive tests. Study 2 focuses on assessing to which extent SC measures relate to risk-taking behaviour. This study includes 20 patients with bvYOD and 20 healthy controls from Study 1, in addition to 20 patients with non-bvYOD (e.g. Alzheimer's dementia or vascular dementia) and 20 patients with serious brain injury affecting frontal networks. A specific question is whether the relationship between SC and risk-taking behaviour is generic (for all groups with SC impairments), or specific (not in dementia without SC impairments).
Results of the YOD-RiSoCo study will yield new, sensitive neuropsychological tests for aspect of social cognition, which may contribute to a more timely diagnosis of YOD, allowing earlier provision of appropriate counselling and care for patients and their close others. Furthermore, the study will contribute to a better identification of those social behavioural symptoms that negatively affect functioning and social relations.
The trial is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov with identifier NCT06286293.
某些早发性痴呆（YOD）亚型，如额颞叶痴呆的行为变异型或阿尔茨海默病的行为变异型（bvYOD），表现为社交行为改变而非记忆障碍。这些症状往往未得到充分认识，导致诊断延迟并引发心理社会问题。社交认知（SC）受损是bvYOD中一个重要的受影响领域，是这些社交行为改变的基础。特别是bvYOD患者的情感迟钝和缺乏同理心可能与有问题的社交行为有关，如冒险行为，这可能会对他人造成潜在伤害。然而，尽管SC受损在YOD诊断中很重要，且对社交行为有影响，但对于SC的某些方面，如情感体验和同理心，缺乏有效且规范良好的测量方法。
YOD-RiSoCo研究是一项观察性前瞻性队列研究，由两项独立但相关的研究组成。研究1包括64例bvYOD患者和64名健康对照，通过比较平均组表现来评估新开发的用于测量情感体验和同理心的SC工具的敏感性和有效性。此外，将通过分析这些新测试的表现与更传统的SC测试及其他神经认知测试的表现之间的关联来评估新工具的有效性。研究2专注于评估SC测量与冒险行为的相关程度。该研究除了包括研究1中的20例bvYOD患者和20名健康对照外，还包括20例非bvYOD患者（如阿尔茨海默病性痴呆或血管性痴呆）和20例影响额叶网络的严重脑损伤患者。一个具体问题是SC与冒险行为之间的关系是普遍的（对于所有有SC受损的群体）还是特定的（在没有SC受损的痴呆中不存在）。
YOD-RiSoCo研究的结果将产生用于社交认知方面的新的、敏感的神经心理学测试，这可能有助于更及时地诊断YOD，从而为患者及其亲密他人更早地提供适当的咨询和护理。此外，该研究将有助于更好地识别那些对功能和社会关系产生负面影响的社交行为症状。
