Introduction: Loss of empathy is a core symptom of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). In particular, the affective aspect of empathy appears to be independent of decrease in the other socioemotional abilities and general cognition in bvFTD. We used an established functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) paradigm to assess bvFTD-related alterations in brain responses during empathy for pain (EFP) in a case-control study.