Behavior and cognitive style of semantic dementia and autism spectrum disorder

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  • Sakuta Shizuka
    Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kumamoto University Hospital
  • Hashimoto Mamoru
    Department of Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry, Osaka University United Graduate School of Child Development

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  • 意味性認知症と発達障害

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<p>Semantic dementia (SD) is a subtype of frontotemporal dementia characterized by progressive loss of semantic memory and behavioral change due to focal atrophy in the temporal lobe. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosed when the characteristic deficits of social communication are accompanied by excessively repetitive behaviors, restricted interests, and insistence of sameness. In this article we discussed symptomatic similarities between SD and ASD, which have quite different pathological backgrounds. First, we evaluated whether SD has autistic traits by using pervasive developmental disorders Autism Society Japan Rating Scale (PARS) and found that the PARS score of SD patients were so high that they could be diagnosed as ASD. Thus, Patients who develop SD can exhibit traits of ASD. Next, we noticed that both SD and ASD have unique cognitive style that focus in detail and hard to understanding the whole image. In patients with traumatic brain injury or neurodegenerative disease, such a cognitive style has been referred to as "impairment of abstract attitude". Interestingly, there is a similar theory to explain the characteristic deficits of social communication and cognitive style of ASD, which is called the weak central coherence theory. We evaluated the deficits of cognitive processing in SD from the viewpoint of abstract attitude and weak central coherence and showed that abstract attitude was commonly impaired in SD patients. We argued that the impairment of abstract attitude may lead some social impairment and behavioral disorder characterized in SD.</p>

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