The neuropsychological correlates of pathological lying: evidence from behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia

An Examination of the Motives for Attributing and Interpreting Deception in People with Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

The aim of the present study was to examine how a person with amnestic mild cognitive impairment perceives the phenomenon of deception. Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) usually represents the prodromal phase of Alzheimer's disease (AD), with patients showing memory impairment but with normal activities of daily living. It was expected that aMCI patients would face difficulties in the attribution and interpretation of deceptive behavior due to deficits regarding their diagnosis. The main sample of the study consisted of 76 older adults who were patients of a daycare center diagnosed with aMCI. A sample of 55 highly educated young adults was also examined in the same experiment to qualitatively compare their performance with that of aMCI patients. Participants were assigned a scenario where a hypothetical partner (either a friend or a stranger) was engaged in a task in which the partner could lie to boost their earnings at the expense of the participant. The results showed that aMCI patients, even if they understood that something was going wrong, did not invest in interpretations of potential deception and tended to avoid searching for confirmative information related to the hypothetical lie of their partner compared to highly educated young adults. It seems that aMCI patients become somehow "innocent", and this is discussed in terms of cognitive impairment and/or socioemotional selectivity.

Similarities and Distinctions between Cortical Neural Substrates That Underlie Generation of Malevolent Creative Ideas

Creativity can be driven by negative intentions, and this is called malevolent creativity (MC). It is a type of creativity that serves antisocial purposes and deliberately leads to harmful or immoral results. A possible classification indicates that there are three kinds of MC in daily life: hurting people, lying, and playing tricks. This study aimed to explore similar and distinct neural substrates underlying these different kinds of MC idea generation. The participants were asked to perform different MC tasks, and their neural responses were recorded using a functional near-infrared spectroscopy device. The findings revealed that most regions within the prefrontal and temporal lobes [e.g., the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC), and right angular gyrus] were involved in the three MC tasks. However, the right frontopolar cortex (rFPC) was more activated and less coupled with the rDLPFC and right precuneus during the lying task than during the other tasks. Thus, rFPC may play an important role in constructing novel lies. In the lying task, individuals were more selfish and less compassionate. In the playing tricks and hurting people tasks, there was less neural coupling between the rDLPFC and the left inferior frontal gyrus/right inferior parietal lobule than that in the lying task. This may imply that selfish motivation is released when individuals try to ignore victims' distress or generate aggressive tricks in hurting people or playing tricks tasks. These findings indicate that the three kinds of MC idea generation involve common cortical regions related to creative idea generation and moral judgment, whereas differences in cortical responses exist because of their unique features.

The Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia Phenocopy Syndrome: A Review

OBJECTIVES

The relatively recent identification of a subgroup of patients with apparent behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) that fails to progress with time has led to a reevaluation of our understanding of bvFTD, and a growing body of research that attempts to characterize the mimic or "phenocopy" syndrome. In this article, we review the literature relating to the phenocopy syndrome, focusing in particular on distinguishing characteristics and potential etiologies.

METHODS

Published articles were identified via a systematic search of PubMed and Embase. Observational and interventional studies, case reports, and case series were sought for inclusion.

RESULTS

While bvFTD and the phenocopy syndrome are clinically indistinguishable at initial presentation, the presence or absence of characteristic changes on neuroimaging predicts 2 very different illness trajectories. The etiology for the phenocopy presentation remains uncertain. It is likely that the syndrome represents a heterogenous assortment of clinical frontal syndromes encompassing atypical neurodegenerative, psychiatric, psychological, and as yet unknown neuropsychiatric causes.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the prognosis of the phenocopy syndrome is generally held to be more favorable than that of bvFTD, patients and families are subject to major disruption in their relationships and social and occupational functioning. Early recognition is crucial to facilitate timely interventions aimed at maintaining relationships, roles, and quality of life of those affected.

Uncommon and/or bizarre features of dementia: part IV

It is well established that the clinical picture of dementias is not clinically homogeneous. For example, non-amnestic presentations of Alzheimer's disease have been referred to as a typical variant. Careful examination of clinical characteristics contributes to understanding the neurobiology of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias and may in turn enhance knowledge of the potential risk factors involved. This study aimed at describing uncommon or bizarre symptoms/syndromes observed in patients suffering from dementia. Medline and Google scholar searches were conducted for relevant articles, chapters, and books published before 2019. Search terms used included dementia, déjà vu, zoophilia, pathological lying, and somatic symptom disorder. Publications found through this indexed search were reviewed for further relevant references. Uncommon/bizarre features of dementia were described as case reports and there were no systematic investigations.

Phenocopy syndrome of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia: a systematic review

Background

The phenocopy syndrome of behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (phFTD) refers to patients presenting with neuropsychiatric symptoms mimicking the behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), but lacking frontotemporal atrophy/hypometabolism on neuroimaging and not evolving to dementia during the follow-up. It is important to recognize phFTD for clinical and research purposes.

Objective

The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of the available literature on phFTD taking into account its clinical, cognitive, imaging, genetic, and pathological features.

Methods and results

We searched for the following terms in two electronic databases (PubMed and Scopus): “frontotemporal dementia and slowly progressive,” “frontotemporal dementia and phenocopy,” “frontotemporal dementia and non-progressive,” “frontotemporal dementia and benign progression,” and “frontotemporal dementia and benign.” We did not include review articles. Papers had to be written in English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish. Overall, 235 studies were retrieved in the initial search. A total of 31 studies composed the final selection, comprising 292 patients. Patients with phFTD are predominantly male and have no major cognitive deficits, with globally preserved executive functions and episodic memory. Some cases (n = 7) of slowly progressive FTD have been associated with C9orf72 genetic expansion. There are only four reports of phFTD neuropathological data, with two patients with no neurodegenerative findings and two with frontotemporal lobar degeneration with ubiquitin-positive inclusions.

Conclusion

The neurobiological underpinnings of phFTD remain unknown. It is controversial whether phFTD belongs to the FTD spectrum. Studies with biomarkers and pathological data are needed to solve the phFTD conundrum.

When Deception Influences Memory: The Implication of Theory of Mind

When deceiving, one should remember to whom a falsified story was previously told; otherwise he or she may include inconsistencies, and the deception will probably be discovered. Bearing this in mind, we investigated the potential relationship between deception and the ability to remember to whom a piece of information was previously told (i.e., destination memory). Forty-one adults were given a destination memory task in which they had to decide to whom proverbs had previously been told. They were also given a questionnaire about deception (e.g., “I sometimes tell lies if I have to) and a cognitive theory of mind task in which they had to predict the behaviour of protagonists who hold a mistaken belief about the state of the world. Results showed a positive correlation between deception and destination memory ( p < .001), a relationship that was further mediated by cognitive theory of mind ability ( p < .01). Deception requires monitoring and inferring what targets know, suspect, and believe. This monitoring ability (i.e., cognitive theory of mind) results in better processing of the target and consequently better destination memory. By showing the involvement of deception and theory of mind in destination memory, our findings emphasize the memory variations in social and interpersonal interactions.

Psychiatric aspects of normal and pathological lying

The paper outlines the difference between the so-called normal (common) lying and pathological lying. Pathological lying is an intriguing topic, still lacking any strong professional consensus, clear etiology, treatment options and prognoses. The paper explores some possible psychological mechanisms of pathological lying, reviews biological factors in pathological lying, and considers forensic significance of normal and pathological lying. The relationship between pathological lying and mental disorders is also discussed. The authors suggest that lying should be considered as a heterogenic and multidimensional behavioral pattern. The paper highlights how important it is to assess the patient's control over lying, the function of lying, insight into and awareness of lying, as well as the effect of lying on everyday functioning.

Estimating frontal and parietal involvement in cognitive estimation: a study of focal neurodegenerative diseases

We often estimate an unknown value based on available relevant information, a process known as cognitive estimation. In this study, we assess the cognitive and neuroanatomic basis for quantitative estimation by examining deficits in patients with focal neurodegenerative disease in frontal and parietal cortex. Executive function and number knowledge are key components in cognitive estimation. Prefrontal cortex has been implicated in multilevel reasoning and planning processes, and parietal cortex has been associated with number knowledge required for such estimations. We administered the Biber cognitive estimation test (BCET) to assess cognitive estimation in 22 patients with prefrontal disease due to behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), to 17 patients with parietal disease due to corticobasal syndrome (CBS) or posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) and 11 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Both bvFTD and CBS/PCA patients had significantly more difficulty with cognitive estimation than controls. MCI were not impaired on BCET relative to controls. Regression analyses related BCET performance to gray matter atrophy in right lateral prefrontal and orbital frontal cortices in bvFTD, and to atrophy in right inferior parietal cortex, right insula, and fusiform cortices in CBS/PCA. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a frontal-parietal network plays a crucial role in cognitive estimation.

The motor cost of telling lies: electrocortical signatures and personality foundations of spontaneous deception

Although universal, lying is generally considered immoral behavior. Most neuroscience studies on lying sanction or instruct deceptive behaviors and thus might fail to acknowledge the significance of lie-related moral conflicts. By combining electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings with a novel paradigm in which participants decided freely whether to deceive another person, we have generated indices of the cognitive (reaction times and stimulus-locked event-related components) and moral (readiness potential and its correlations with deception-related personality traits) cost of spontaneous deception. Our data fail to support the consensus that deception is cognitively more demanding than truth telling, suggesting that spontaneous deception, as opposed to lying out of requirement, might not mandate additional cognitive workload. Interestingly, lying was associated with decreased motor readiness, an event-related potential (ERP) component that is linked to motor preparation of self-determined actions and modulated when we face moral dilemmas. Notably, this reduction was less extensive in manipulative participants and greater in those who cared highly about their impression management. Our study expands on previous findings on deception by associating a cortical marker of reduced preparation to act with individual differences in moral cognition.