Social cognition in the FTLD spectrum: evidence from MRI

Over the past few years, there has been great interest in social cognition, a wide term referring to the human ability of understanding others’ emotions, thoughts, and intentions, to empathize with them and to behave accordingly. While there is no agreement on the classification of social cognitive processes, they can broadly be categorized as consisting of theory of mind, empathy, social perception, and social behavior. The study of social cognition and its relative deficits is increasingly assuming clinical relevance. However, the clinical and neuroanatomical correlates of social cognitive alterations in neurodegenerative conditions, such as those belonging to the frontotemporal lobar (FTLD) spectrum, are not fully established. In this review, we describe the current understanding of social cognition impairments in different FTLD conditions with respect to MRI.