Bruce Willis has frontotemporal dementia. What is it?

Less than a year after Bruce Willis was diagnosed with the neurological disorder aphasia, he now has a new diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a group of disorders characterized by a progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the frontal lobe or the brain regions underneath the ears.

At the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Andrew Budson, a cognitive and behavioral neurologist and cognitive neuroscientist, studies dementia, including FTD.

An expert on memory in people with Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders, his recent clinical and research work has focused on helping patients use music, pictures, and other strategies to enhance their memory—and reduce false memories.

Budson, a professor of neurology and chief of cognitive and behavioral neurology at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, is also the author of popular books on memory, including Why We Forget and How To Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Here, Budson talks about FTD—its causes, symptoms, progression, and what having the condition might mean for Willis—and how close researchers are to finding a cure: