Affiliations: Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO), Buenos
Aires, Argentina | Institute of Neurosciences, Favaloro University,
Buenos Aires, Argentina | Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile | National Scientific and Technical Research Council
(CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Note: [] Corresponding author: Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht or Facundo Manes,
Pacheco de Melo 1854, Buenos Aires, Argentina (1126). Tel./Fax: +54 11 4812
0010; E-mail: egleich@ineco.org.ar; fmanes@ineco.org.ar
Abstract: We sought to investigate the decision making profile of Primary
Progressive Aphasia (PPA) by assessing patients diagnosed with this disease
(n=10), patients diagnosed with behavioral variant
frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD, n=35), and matched
controls (n=14) using the Iowa Gambling Task, a widely
used test that mimics real-life decision making. Participants were also
evaluated with a complete neuropsychological battery. Patients with PPA were
unable to adopt an advantageous strategy on the IGT, which resulted in a flat
performance, different to that exhibited by both controls (who showed
advantageous decision making) and bvFTD patients (who showed risk-appetitive
behavior). The decision making profile of PPA patients was not associated with
performance on language tasks and did not differ between sub-variants of the
disease (namely, semantic dementia and progressive nonfluent aphasia).
Investigating decision making in PPA is crucial both from a theoretical
perspective, as it can shed light about the way in which language interacts
with other cognitive functions, as well as a clinical standpoint, as it could
lead to a more objective detection of impairments of decision making deficits in this condition.
