“Contrary to what generations of philosophers and psychologists have thought, memory loss doesn’t make someone seem like a different person.”
Strohminger and Nichols focused on three neurodegenerative diseases: frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS served as a control since it primarily affects movement, and not memory or moral behavior. Alzheimer’s, for its part, primarily affects memory, but also has some impact on moral behavior. Of the three, FTD is the one most likely to have a moral impact—its symptoms include a loss of empathy, poor judgment, and increasingly inappropriate behavior.