[BIC-announce] FW: Seminar in Cognitive Neuroscience: Thursday, April 26th - Loss of Insight in Frontotemporal Dementia and Primary Progressive Aphasia

[Jennifer Chew, Ms.]

PLEASE DISCARD IF THIS IS A DUPLICATE.  THANK YOU.  JENNIFER 
 

Jennifer Chew

McConnell Brain Imaging Centre

MNI - WB317

3801 University Street

Montreal, Qc  H3A 2B4

Telephone:  514-398-8554

Fax:  514-398-2975

 

Sarah J. Banks
Ph.D. Candidate in Clinical Neuropsychology,
Northwestern University 
Feinberg School of Medicine, 
Chicago Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center 

Loss of Insight in Frontotemporal Dementia and Primary Progressive
Aphasia

Thursday, April 26th, 2007
W201
3801 University Street
1:30 p.m.

Host: Marilyn Jones-Gotman

 

 

Abstract:

Loss of insight into symptoms of a disease, or anosognosia, has been of
interest in neurology since the 1800s.  Anosognosia is often associated
with hemiplegia following right hemisphere stroke, with Anton's
syndrome, and with Wernicke's aphasia.  Recently, researchers have
investigated this phenomenon in dementia.  Studies of anosognosia in
Alzheimer's disease have revealed certain disease characteristics and
anatomic specificity associated with reduced insight that may be
applicable to dementia caused by frontotemporal lobar degeneration
(FTLD).  Dementias caused by FTLD include frontotemporal dementia (FTD),
which involves a breakdown in comportment, and primary progressive
aphasia (PPA), which causes a gradual loss of language abilities.
Whereas loss of insight is an early symptom of FTD, patients with PPA
appear to have more intact insight in the early stages of their disease.
Little is known about how insight changes with disease progression in
PPA.  This talk will include discussion of three studies of anosognosia
in FTD and PPA.  The studies incorporate quantification of loss of
insight, characterization in terms of symptom specificity,
self-awareness and self-monitoring of symptoms, and cognitive,
neuropsychiatric and disease-severity correlates of loss of insight.