TABLE 2.

Some diagnostic and therapeutic considerations in clinical application of artworks for healthy aging and dementia.

Target group	Relevant artistic brain connectome mechanisms*	Preserved capacities†	Putative deficits	Candidate diagnostic markers	Candidate therapeutic strategies—outcomes
Healthy older people	Altered construction network connectivity	Theory- and narrative-based mental state decoding	Embodied imitation and perspective taking	Reduced social connectedness, loneliness, mood (in relation to healthy older socio-cultural peers)	Enhanced self-expression, social connectedness, mindfulness, resilience, prevention of dementia
Alzheimer’s disease	Altered animation/construction (default-mode) network connectivity	Narrative-based mental state decoding, novelty coding, emotional reactivity	Integration with autobiographical record, perspective taking, visual scene parsing	Impaired processing of visual gestalt (e.g., symbolic value), reduced self-referential descriptions despite normative emotional responses	Sharing of feelings with caregivers and practitioners, enhanced self-expression, and social connectedness
Parkinson’s disease dementia	Altered perception/interaction (visual, dorsal attention) network connectivity	Mental state decoding	Visual scene parsing, emotional reactivity	Impaired parsing of visual features/processing of visual gestalt	Sharing of feelings with caregivers and practitioners, self-expression, and social connectedness
Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia¶	Altered Animation/Interaction/Construction Network connectivity	Creativity, perceptual analysis	Socio-emotional conceptual knowledge, salience coding, emotional reactivity	Socially uncalibrated judgments and emotional responses, reduced autonomic reactivity	Scaffolding of pro-social behavior, while creating space for expression of idiosyncratic and creative impulses in social context
Semantic dementia¶	Altered animation/construction network connectivity	Creativity, perceptual analysis	Socio-emotional conceptual knowledge, self-concept, emotional reactivity	Socially uncalibrated judgments and emotional responses, altered autonomic reactivity (e.g., enhanced valuation of particular colors)	Scaffolding of pro-social behavior, while creating space for expression of idiosyncratic and creative impulses in social context

In this table shows putative artistic brain connectome changes and art-based diagnostic and therapeutic applications in healthy aging and some major dementia syndromes (see text). Our intention here is to indicate how neuroscientific progress in elucidating the artistic brain connectome and links to social cognition might be used to tailor art-based interventions in a relevant clinical context. *Proposed leading alteration; ^†may vary between individuals from relatively spared to positively enhanced; ^¶these two syndromes show substantial clinical and neuroanatomical overlap.