This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The overall goal of this project is to define the characteristics and neuroanatomical predictors of attention and executive impairments in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). FTD is a neurodegenerative disorder that differentially affects the frontal lobes. Frontally mediated deficits in attention and executive functioning are central features of FTD that have far reaching consequences for behavior, including cognitive rigidity, disinhibition, inability to sustain goal-oriented behavior, and poor functional adaptation in the context of relative preservation of memory, language, and spatial ability. Despite their importance for diagnosis and patient care, these attentional and executive deficits are poorly understood. We will study 75 patients with mild FTD, 75 severity-matched patients with AD, and 100 age-matched controls using cognitive models of attention and executive functioning that enable parsing of attention into several key components associated with anterior and posterior networks.
Specific aims are to evaluate differences between FTD, AD and controls in executive control of attention, test whether specific regions of cerebral atrophy are selectively associated with impairment on attentional tasks, and evaluate the functional significance of attentional and executive deficits in FTD and AD.
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