Emotional and social changes in early frontotemporal dementia
Emotion network dysfunction and decline in early frontotemporal dementia
The team will use wearable sensors and short remote tasks to track emotional reactions and social behavior in people with early or genetic frontotemporal dementia.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of California, San Francisco NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (San Francisco, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11303362 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
You would wear simple sensors and complete brief remote tasks over multiple days while researchers collect real-world measures of your emotional responses and social behavior. Those remote measures will be compared to lab tests of facial expression, heart and autonomic responses to see which signals match the brain changes seen in FTD. The project follows people over time, including people who carry FTD-related gene changes before symptoms start and those with mild symptoms. The aim is to find practical emotion biomarkers that can be tracked outside the clinic.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Ideal participants are people with behavioral-variant FTD, people who carry FTD-linked mutations (C9orf72, GRN, MAPT), or those with very mild symptoms.
Not a fit: People with advanced dementia, other non-FTD dementias, or those unable to wear devices or complete remote tasks are unlikely to benefit from participating.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could provide easy-to-use remote markers of emotional decline to monitor disease progression or response to future treatments.
How similar studies have performed: Prior lab-based work has shown early autonomic and facial-expression changes in FTD, but multi-day remote monitoring is a newer approach that remains under testing.
Where this research is happening
San Francisco, United States
- University of California, San Francisco — San Francisco, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Sturm, Virginia Emily — University of California, San Francisco
- Study coordinator: Sturm, Virginia Emily
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.