Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center

OUR RESEARCH

The Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center brings together an energetic team of creative clinicians and researchers dedicated to the investigation and treatment of early onset neurodegenerative conditions. Our team of experts include neurologists, neuropathologists, neuroscientists, geneticists, genetic counselors, neuropsychologists, nurses, social workers, and clinical research coordinators, all targeting a cure for Frontotemporal degeneration.

The research expertise at the Penn FTD Center spans many levels of neuroscience ranging from detailed clinico-pathological studies, biomarker discovery, genetics, neuropsychological studies, functional and structural neuroimaging, and cognitive neuroscience investigations of language, memory, and social cognition.

Volunteers who participate in Penn FTD Center research studies assist the Center in advancing the science of frontotemporal degenerative diseases and help us provide the highest quality of care for our clinical patients.

Observational Research

Clinical Trials

OUR MISSION

To educate the community, both local and national, about young-onset dementias such as Frontotemporal degeneration, and; to increase local engagement and interest in research at the University of Pennsylvania Frontotemporal Degeneration Center (FTDC). These activities will help promote a community of support, access to resources, and improved outcomes for individuals with early onset-dementia and their families.

Our Latest Publications

“Um…, It’s Really Difficult to… Um… Speak Fluently”: Neural Tracking of Spontaneous Speech

Spontaneous real-life speech is imperfect in many ways. It contains disfluencies and ill-formed utterances and has a highly variable rate. When listening to spontaneous speech, the brain needs to contend with these features in order to extract the speaker’s meaning. Here, we studied how the neural response is affected by four specific factors that are prevalent in spontaneous colloquial speech: (1) the presence of fillers, (2) the need to detect syntactic boundaries in disfluent speech, and (3) variability in speech rate.