Frontal lobe syndrome and dementias

Abstract The term frontal lobe syndrome refers to a clinical spectrum of symptoms leading to difficulties in executive, behavioral, and social cognition functions (i.e., empathy and theory of mind), usually associated with functional or structural changes in the prefrontal cortex. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the frontosubcortical circuits, the related clinical syndromes, and the main neurodegenerative diseases leading to cortical dementia with prominent frontal deficits. There is a growing literature on the behavioral and neural correlates of specific deficits related to each of the main components of this clinical syndrome. However, there are a number of issues, and alternative interpretations of frontal lobe syndrome, that have been proposed by different studies, since this term has been used in many ways over the years. A frontal lobe syndrome is reported in numerous neurodegenerative diseases, such as frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer disease, and Parkinson’s disease.