Table 1.
Demographic, clinical, and neuropsychological characteristics of participant groups
| Characteristic | Healthy controls | bvFTD | rtvFTD | svPPA | nfvPPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demographic and clinical | |||||
| No. (m:f) | 19 (8:11) | 10 (7:3) | 6 (6:0) | 7 (5:2) | 9 (4:5) |
| Age (yrs) | 68.8 (5.5) | 67 (6.3) | 63.8 (9.1) | 65.9 (7.5) | 69.6 (6.5) |
| Handedness (R:L) | 18:1 | 9:1:0 | 6:0:0 | 7:0:0 | 7:2:0 |
| Education (yrs) | 15.5 (2.9) | 12.8 (2.5)c | 18 (3.1) | 15.3 (2.8) | 15 (2.7) |
| MMSE (/30) | 29.6 (0.6) | 24.1 (4.9)a | 25.3 (4.3) | 22.6 (5.8)a | 23.7 (6.0)a |
| Duration (yrs) | ‐ | 8.2 (5.3) | 6.5 (3.5) | 4.4 (2.1) | 4.6 (2.2) |
| Mean heart rate | 69.5 (10.2) | 72.9 (14.2) | 71.8 (11.8) | 69.7 (5.2) | 85.5 (17.1)a |
| Heart rate variance | 0.23 (0.7) | 0.21 (0.6) | 0.05 (0.07) | 0.08 (0.08) | 0.03 (0.04) |
| Cardiac reactivity index | 1.67 (1.5) | 0.54 (0.4)a , c | 2.42 (1.4) | 1.61(1.6) | 0.12 (1.1)a , c |
| Emotion recognition (%) | 70.5 (9.2) | 41.4 (18.9)a | 40.0 (19.4)a | 40.2(16.1)a | 53.8 (18.5)a |
| Neuropsychological | |||||
| General intellect | |||||
| WASI verbal IQ | 125.4 (7.0) | 86.2 (23.7)a | 86.7 (22.2)a | 78.6(20.4)a | 79.6 (17.3)a |
| WASI performance IQ | 125.1 (9.7) | 99.8 (20.2)a | 106.8 (24.6) | 112.3(10.1) | 98.8 (21.5)a |
| Episodic memory | |||||
| RMT words (/50) | 44.7 (3.7) | 33.5 (7.9)a | 34.8 (7.9)a | 32.7 (6.4)a | 39.5 (6.6) |
| RMT faces (/50) | 49.3 (0.9) | 35.6 (7.5)a | 37.2 (9.3)a | 30.3 (6.9)a , e | 41.4 (9.5)a |
| Camden PAL (/24) | 20.3 (3.5) | 9.3 (8.2)a | 12.5 (6.2) | 2.7 (4.2)a , c , e | 16.3 (7.8) |
| Executive skills | |||||
| WASI Block Design (/71) | 46.0 (10.1) | 29.9 (17.9) | 37.2 (22.1) | 41.6 (19.0) | 25.1 (19.7)a |
| WASI Matrices (/32) | 26.6 (4.1) | 17.1 (9.6)a | 19.0 (9.8) | 21.7 (8.5) | 17.4 (9.0)a |
| WMS‐R digit span forward (max) | 7.1 (1.2) | 6.4 (1.3) | 6.8 (1.2) | 7.0 (1.2) | 4.8 (0.8)a , c , d |
| WMS‐R digit span reverse (max) | 5.6 (1.3) | 4.2 (1.5) | 4.7 (1.4) | 5.1 (2.0) | 3.0 (0.7)a |
| D‐KEFS Stroop color naming (s) | 32.4 (6.4)e | 49.9 (21.7)e | 48.8 (21.4)e | 50.3 (27.9)e | 87.0 (6.7) |
| D‐KEFS Stroop word reading (s) | 23.5 (5.7)e | 34.3 (20.9)e | 38.7 (26.1)e | 30.9 (19.2)e | 85.4 (10.3) |
| D‐KEFS Stroop interference (s) | 56.2 (16.9)b , e | 106.2 (50.7)e | 98.3 (45.1)e | 82.7 (50.5)e | 165.0 (30.1) |
| Letter fluency (F: total) | 18.1 (5.7) | 6.8 (4.3)a | 9.0 (4.7)a | 9.7 (7.2)a | 3.5 (1.7)a |
| Category fluency (animals: total) | 24.7 (5.9) | 12.4 (7.7)a | 10.3 (2.3)a | 6.7 (5.4)a | 8.8 (3.5)a |
| Trails A (s) | 32.2 (5.6)e | 59.3 (35.5) | 59.8 (32.9) | 47.0 (21.0) | 81.7 (48.4) |
| Trails B (s) | 66.1 (20.5)b , c , e | 182.5 (87.2) | 186.7 (100.4) | 133.6 (110.1) | 211.1 (94.6) |
| Language skills | |||||
| WASI vocabulary (/80) | 72.2 (3.4) | 39.9 (23.8)a | 47.0 (19.1)a | 34.7 (22.7)a | 31.7 (13.9)a |
| BPVS (/150) | 148.5 (1.1) | 112.9 (41.3)a | 141.8 (7.2) | 94.4 (49.4)a , c , e | 142.6 (10.1) |
| GNT (/30) | 26.3 (2.4) | 9.4 (9.9)a | 12.5 (10.1)a | 2.0 (5.3)a , c , e | 15.5 (6.6)a |
| Other skills | |||||
| GDA (/24) | 15.8 (5.4) | 7.9 (5.7)a | 7.5 (6.3)a | 11.3 (8.3) | 5.4 (1.9)a |
| VOSP Object Decision (/20) | 19.1 (1.6) | 15.0 (3.3)a | 16.7 (2.3) | 15.7 (5.1) | 15.3 (4.7) |
Mean (standard deviation) scores are shown unless otherwise indicated; maximum scores are shown after tests (in parentheses). BPVS, British Picture Vocabulary Scale;46 bvFTD, patient group with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia; Category fluency for animal category and letter fluency for the letter F in 1 min;47 GDA, Graded Difficulty Arithmetic;48 GNT, Graded Naming Test;49 MMSE, Mini‐Mental State Examination score;50 PAL, Paired Associate Learning test51; nfvPPA, patient group with nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia; RMT, Recognition Memory Test;52 rtvFTD, patient group with right temporal variant frontotemporal dementia (defined from inspection of individual brain MRI); svPPA, patient group with semantic variant primary progressive aphasia; Stroop D‐KEFS, Delis Kaplan Executive System;53 Trails‐making task based on maximum time achievable 2.5 min on task A, 5 min on task B;54 VOSP, Visual Object and Spatial Perception Battery;55 WAIS‐R, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Revised;56 WASI, Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence;57 WMS, Wechsler Memory Scale.58
Different from controls.
Different from bvFTD.
Different from rtvFTD.
Different from svPPA.
Different from nfvPPA (all at significance threshold P < 0.05).