The Dynamic Affect Recognition Test: Construction and Validation in Neurodegenerative Syndromes

ABSTRACT Learning objective To validate a novel video-based emotion identification measure in persons with neurodegeneration and show correspondence to emotion-relevant brain systems Background Given advances in disease-modifying therapies for dementia, the dementia field needs objective, practical behavioral assessment tools for patient trial selection and monitoring. The Dynamic Affect Recognition Test (DART) was designed to remedy limitations of instruments typically used to measure emotion identification deficits in persons with dementia (PWD). Method Participants included 372 individuals, including 257 early stage PWD (Clinical Dementia Rating ≤1, Mini-Mental State Examination ≥20; 66 behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia [bvFTD], 27 semantic variant primary progressive aphasia [svPPA], 23 semantic bvFTD [sbvFTD], 33 non-fluent PPA [nfvPPA], 26 progressive supranuclear palsy [PSP], 28 corticobasal syndrome [CBS], 42 Alzheimer’s disease [AD], 12 logopenic variant PPA [lvPPA]), and 115 healthy controls (HC), watched 12 15-second videos of an actor expressing a basic emotion (happy, surprised, sad, angry, fearful, disgusted) via congruent facial/vocal/postural cues, with semantically neutral scripts. Participants selected the emotion from a randomized visual array. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis was performed to show brain structure correlates of DART, controlling for non-emotional naming ability (Boston Naming Test, BNT). Results DART performance was worse in PWD than older HC (p