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F1‐01‐05: Cortical thinning in early vs. Late‐onset alzheimer's disease: brain‐behavior relationships and genetic Influences
Author(s) -
Dickerson Bradford
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2011.05.218
Subject(s) - atrophy , neuroscience , dementia , psychology , temporal lobe , age of onset , frontal lobe , disease , epilepsy , medicine , pathology
differentially affected in EOAD and LOAD. Methods: EOAD and LOAD patients (onset before and after age 65) were assessed with a neuropsychological battery and high-resolution MRI together with 1:1 ageand sexmatched controls. Cortical atrophy was assessed with cortical pattern matching, hippocampal atrophy with region-of-interest-based analysis. In addition, atrophy of the amygdala and nucleus accumbens was assessed on a subsample of patients using a shape analysis approach. Results: In EOAD, severe GM loss was detected in large neocortical areas in all the lobes. In LOAD, GM loss was diffusely milder and showed the strongest effect in the medial temporal lobe and right superior temporal gyrus. Both the amygdala and nucleus accumbens were significantly reduced in EOAD and LOAD, with no significant difference between the two patient groups. The shape analysis however showed a different pattern of local involvement in the nucleus accumbens. In addition, EOAD showed additional atrophy in the amygdalar nuclei connecting to neocortical areas. Conclusions: EOAD and LOAD differ in their typical topographic patterns of brain atrophy. The preliminary results suggest that the differences in subcortical atrophy may be related to the distinct topography of cortical grey matter atrophy in EOAD and LOAD.