Dissociation betweentheory of mind'and executive functions in a patient with early left amygdala damage (original) (raw)

Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia and Asperger's Syndrome: Relationship with Negative Symptoms

Klinik psikofarmakoloji bulteni = Bulletin of clinical psychopharmacology

Although previous studies have shown that the theory of mind (ToM) ability is impaired in Asperger's Syndrome (AS) and in schizophrenia, few controlled studies compared the ToM performance between the two disorders. Besides, the relationship between the degree of ToM impairment and symptom dimensions is unclear, and presence of ToM impairment in remitted patients with schizophrenia is controversial. Here, we tested the hypothesis that schizophrenia patients with prominent negative symptoms were closer to AS patients and different than schizophrenia patients without prominent negative symptoms and healthy controls in terms of ToM functioning. Fourteen patients with AS, 20 with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls, matched by age, educational level and IQ scores were enrolled. AS was diagnosed according to the DSM-IV criteria and independently confirmed by two psychiatrists. Schizophrenia patients were diagnosed by the Turkish version of Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV D...

Theory of Mind and the Frontal Lobes

2005

ABSTRACT- Background: Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states to other individu-als. Its cerebral organization is not enough established, even though the literature suggests the relevant role of the frontal lobes. Objective: To evaluate frontal lobe patients and controls in ToM tests. M e t h o d: We studied 20 patients with lesions limited to the frontal lobes (as shown by CT or MRI), and 10 norm a l control subjects by means of ToM tests (recognizing himself in mirrors, false belief, first and second order ToM tasks), as well as tests of other cognitive functions (counter- p ro o f s). Results: Patients and contro l s performed similarly in ToM tests. There was significant difference between frontal subgroups (left, right, b i f rontal) in the double-bluff task (second order ToM) (p=0.021), without relation to verbal fluency (p=0.302) or delayed recall ability (p=0.159). The only two patients with deficits in ToM tasks had impairment of social b e h a v i o ...

The impact of extensive medial frontal lobe damage on'Theory of Mind'and …

Brain, 2004

The ability of humans to predict and explain other people's behaviour by attributing to them independent mental states, such as desires and beliefs, is considered to be due to our ability to construct a 'Theory of Mind'. Recently, several neuroimaging studies have implicated the medial ...

Neural systems involved in "theory of mind

Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 2002

What is the nature of our ability to understand and reason about the beliefs of others--the possession of a "theory of mind", or ToM? Here, we review findings from imaging and lesion studies indicating that ToM reasoning is supported by a widely distributed neural system. Some functional components of this system, such as language-related regions of the left hemisphere, the frontal lobes and the right temporal parietal cortex, are not solely dedicated to the computation of mental states. However, the system also includes a core, domain-specific component that is centred on the amygdala circuitry. We provide a framework in which impairments of ToM can be viewed in terms of abnormalities of the core system, the failure of a co-opted system that is necessary for performance on a particular set of tasks, or the absence of an experiential trigger for the emergence of ToM.