Reversal learning in FTD (fMRI)

Objective: Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that results in disinhibition and difficulty with flexible responding when provided feedback. Inflexible responding is observed early in the course of the illness and contributes to the financial and social morbidities of FTD. Reversal learning is an established cognitive paradigm that indexes flexible responding in the face of feedback signaling a change in reinforcement contingencies, with components of reversal learning associated with specific neurotransmitter systems. The objective of the study was to evaluate the neural mechanisms underlying impaired flexible behavioural responding in FTD using a reversal learning paradigm combined with fMRI.

Methods: Twenty-two patients meeting the diagnostic criteria for FTD and twenty-one healthy controls completed the study. Participants completed an fMRI-adapted reversal learning task that indexes behavioural flexibility when provided positive and negative feedback.
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