Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is marked by profound impairments in decision-making; unfortunately, FTD is typically only diagnosed after patients have made significant errors in judgment. Clinically, delays in diagnosis reflect the absence of objective clinical tests for decision-making, and are missed opportunities to prevent serious harms. Scientifically, delayed diagnosis limits our ability to study decision-making deficits, as research patients with confirmed FTD tend to have more profound deficits that may not reflect early changes, and often cannot tolerate more sophisticated behavioral paradigms. This clinical and scientific gap will be addressed with neuroeconomic analyses of decision-making in presymptomatic mutation carriers from familial FTD kindreds in two large NIH-funded multicenter networks spanning the US and Canada. The central hypothesis is that early behavioral and physiological changes in FTD mutation carriers will reveal initial signs and mechanisms of impaired judgment in FTD, potentially also elucidating neural mechanisms of impaired decision-making in other neuropsychiatric disorders. 110 presymptomatic carriers and 110 noncarrier family members from these multicenter networks will be recruited for tests of decision-making on a secure web-enabled platform that enables rapid and flexible data collection from participants across North America. Guided by strong preliminary data, the central hypothesis will be tested by pursuing three specific aims: 1) Apply neuroeconomic models of decision-making to define subtle alterations in judgment in presymptomatic bvFTD mutation carriers; 2) Determine structural and functional (resting-state) MRI predictors of altered decision- making in bvFTD mutation carriers; and 3) Elucidate neural and physiological mechanisms underlying behavioral change in mutation carriers. Under the first two aims, the web-enabled platform will assay neuroeconomic parameters such as loss aversion, framing effects, and interpersonal decision-making; which will then be analyzed in conjunction with a rich dataset of cognitive and neuroimaging measures already being collected per protocol across network sites.
Under Aim 3, behavioral performance on the web-enabled platform will be used to select a subset of mutation carriers and noncarriers for more detailed in-person physiological and task-based fMRI testing. This web-enabled approach is innovative, because while other researchers have begun to use online methods to administer tasks to large numbers of participants at home, this strategy allows the evaluation of hypotheses involving neuroimaging and standardized measures that cannot be performed online. This combines the strengths of traditional on-site evaluation with the flexibility and scaling advantages of newer online methods. The proposed work will thus make a significant contribution by applying novel methods and more precise neuroeconomic measures of decision-making in a large sample of presymptomatic gene carriers, addressing a major limitation to research on some of the earliest and most damaging symptoms of FTD.

Public Health Relevance

/PUBLIC HEALTH SIGNIFICANCE The proposed research is relevant to public health because impaired decision-making in disease often has devastating health and financial consequences for patients with neuropsychiatric illness and their families. As we currently lack objective tests for changes in decision-making, many patients with frontotemporal dementia are only diagnosed after significant errors in judgment. The overarching goal of this project is to study early mechanisms of behavioral change in presymptomatic gene carriers for frontotemporal dementia, ultimately to improve early diagnosis so that patients and families can better prepare for incapacity and to minimize risks associated with poor decisions.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG022983-15
Application #
10113493
Study Section
Adult Psychopathology and Disorders of Aging Study Section (APDA)
Program Officer
Silverberg, Nina B
Project Start
2004-09-01
Project End
2022-02-28
Budget Start
2021-03-01
Budget End
2022-02-28
Support Year
15
Fiscal Year
2021
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California San Francisco
Department
Neurology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
094878337
City
San Francisco
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94143
Sturm, Virginia E; Perry, David C; Wood, Kristie et al. (2017) Prosocial deficits in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia relate to reward network atrophy. Brain Behav 7:e00807
Perry, David C; Brown, Jesse A; Possin, Katherine L et al. (2017) Clinicopathological correlations in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia. Brain 140:3329-3345
Perry, David C; Datta, Samir; Sturm, Virginia E et al. (2017) Reward deficits in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia include insensitivity to negative stimuli. Brain 140:3346-3356
Chiong, Winston; Wood, Kristie A; Beagle, Alexander J et al. (2016) Neuroeconomic dissociation of semantic dementia and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia. Brain 139:578-87
Kalapatapu, Raj K; Delucchi, Kevin L; Wang, Sophia et al. (2016) Substance use history in behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia versus primary progressive aphasia. J Addict Dis 35:36-41
Mansoor, Yael; Jastrzab, Laura; Dutt, Shubir et al. (2015) Memory profiles in pathology or biomarker confirmed Alzheimer disease and frontotemporal dementia. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord 29:135-40
You, S Christine; Walsh, Christine M; Chiodo, Louis A et al. (2015) Neuropsychiatric Symptoms Predict Functional Status in Alzheimer's Disease. J Alzheimers Dis 48:863-9
Perry, David C; Kramer, Joel H (2015) Reward processing in neurodegenerative disease. Neurocase 21:120-33
Wagshal, Dana; Sankaranarayanan, Sethu; Guss, Valerie et al. (2015) Divergent CSF ? alterations in two common tauopathies: Alzheimer's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 86:244-50
Perry, David C; Sturm, Virginia E; Wood, Kristie A et al. (2015) Divergent processing of monetary and social reward in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer disease. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord 29:161-4

Showing the most recent 10 out of 41 publications