Disinhibition in dementia related to reduced morphometric similarity of cognitive control network

Abstract

Disinhibition is one of the most distressing and difficult to treat neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia. It involves socially inappropriate behaviors, such as hypersexual comments, inappropriate approaching of strangers and excessive jocularity. Disinhibition occurs in multiple dementia syndromes, including behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, and dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. Morphometric Similarity Networks are a relatively new method for examining brain structure and can be used to calculate measures of network integrity on large scale brain networks and subnetworks such as the salience network and cognitive control network.

In a cross-sectional study, we calculated Morphometric Similarity Networks to determine whether disinhibition in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (n = 75) and dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (n = 111) was associated with reduced integrity of these networks independent of diagnosis.

We found that presence of disinhibition, measured by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire, was associated with reduced global efficiency of the cognitive control network in both dementia of the Alzheimer’s type and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia.

Future research should replicate this transdiagnostic finding in other dementia diagnoses and imaging modalities, and investigate the potential for intervention at the level of the cognitive control network to target disinhibition.