Wearable sensors capturing digital autonomic biomarkers to detect empathy loss for frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD)
Awardee Organization(s): University of Pennsylvania Frontotemporal Degeneration Center
Principal Investigator(s): Emma Rhodes, PhD
Official Project Title: Feasibility of Digital Monitoring to Detect Autonomic Markers of Empathy Loss in bvFTD
AITC Partner: PennAITech
Website(s): www.med.upenn.edu/ftd
Loss of empathy is a core symptom of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) that negatively impacts daily functioning and is highly distressing to families and caregivers. Scientific research has struggled to understand the specific causes of empathy loss in bvFTD. A relatively unexplored but promising avenue of scientific inquiry is the role of autonomic nervous system (ANS) arousal in empathy loss in bvFTD. The ANS is comprised of two complementary subsystems, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which operate together to regulate an individual’s level of physiologic arousal in response to emotional cues from the environment. Patients with bvFTD show abnormalities in autonomic arousal 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 autonomic arousal, namely hard-wired EKG and skin conductance sensors, which restrict the movement of the patient and are sensitive to motion effects. Recent advances in wearable smartwatch technology allow for precise, unobtrusive measurement of autonomic arousal with built-in motion sensors that more accurately capture key arousal variables, such as respiratory sinus arrythmia and skin conductance. Use of smartwatch technology will advance our understanding of physiologic mechanisms of empathy loss in bvFTD and other neuropsychiatric symptoms in ADRD and identify potential treatment targets. The overarching goal of this project is to test the feasibility of using a smartwatch to capture abnormalities in autonomic arousal in bvFTD and validate digital markers of autonomic abnormalities against behavioral measures of empathy loss.
In this project, we will use these findings to develop in-home conversational technologies that use prompts to structure care conversations between older adults and their caregivers.
We contribute a nuanced dyadic perspective to care relationships as most care research focuses solely on caregiver perspectives. We also extend conversational technology research beyond information seeking to include more social uses by developing conversational technology applications with mainstream voice technologies (e.g., Amazon Alexa) to support improved care relationships, social and emotional well-being, and quality of life.
