Pop Music & Frontotemporal Dementia
Abstract
Dementia is generally regarded as a condition marked by losses: loss of memory, reasoning abilities, and language, for example. However, this is not always the case. In frontotemporal dementia (FTD), behaviors deviating from the patients prior set of norms and standards frequently occur. The authors report the cases of 2 individuals (aged 68 and 73 yrs) with FTD who experienced a change in musical taste that might represent a singular gain. A possible hypothesis to explain this behavior is that it could be the consequence of an unspecific change in attitude to novelty. It has been suggested that novelty is managed by the right frontal lobe, and a disproportionate functional prevalence of the right over the left frontal lobe might lead to novelty seeking. However, this does not seem to be the case in these patients, who showed basically symmetric involvement of the frontal lobes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)