# Digital monitoring of autonomic activity to detect empathy loss in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia

> **NIH NIH K23** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2024 · $162,876

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) develop progressive and highly distressing
symptoms of social and emotional dysfunction, including loss of empathy for other people. Scientific research
has struggled to understand the specific causes of empathy loss in bvFTD because empathy is difficult to
measure in a way that is meaningful and not biased by other factors, such as caregiver burden, and because
individuals with bvFTD have highly variable patterns of cognitive and behavioral functioning. A relatively
unexplored but promising avenue of scientific inquiry is the role of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity in
empathy loss in bvFTD. The ANS is comprised of two complementary subsystems, the sympathetic and
parasympathetic nervous systems, which operate together to increase and decrease levels of physiologic
arousal in response to cues from the environment. Patients with bvFTD show subtle abnormalities in ANS
activity that are linked to symptoms of social dysfunction, including loss of empathy, but this line of research
has been hindered by reliance on traditional methods of measuring ANS output, namely hard-wired EKG and
skin conductance sensors, which restrict the movement of the patient and are sensitive to motion artifacts.
Recent advances in wearable smartwatch technology allow for precise, unobtrusive measurement of ANS
activity with built-in motion detectors to account for changes in ANS signals that are due to movement.
Smartwatch technology is well-suited for continuous measurement of ANS functioning to detect subtle
abnormalities that correspond to behavioral measures of empathy in bvFTD. This project has the potential to
identify specific physiologic contributions to empathy loss in bvFTD, which can be used to develop new
treatments and improve early detection of social and emotional dysfunction in bvFTD.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10895560
- **Project number:** 5K23AG083124-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Emma Rhodes
- **Activity code:** K23 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $162,876
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-08-01 → 2028-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10895560

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10895560, Digital monitoring of autonomic activity to detect empathy loss in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (5K23AG083124-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10895560. Licensed CC0.

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