| 1. |
- Healey, Meghan, et al.
(författare)
-
Cognitive and Neuroanatomic Accounts of Referential Communication in Focal Dementia
- 2019
-
Ingår i: eNeuro. - 2373-2822. ; 6:5
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The primary function of language is to communicate-that is, to make individuals reach a state of mutual understanding about a particular thought or idea. Accordingly, daily communication is truly a task of social coordination. Indeed, successful interactions require individuals to (1) track and adopt a partner's perspective and (2) continuously shift between the numerous elements relevant to the exchange. Here, we use a referential communication task to study the contributions of perspective taking and executive function to effective communication in nonaphasic human patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Similar to previous work, the task was to identify a target object, embedded among an array of competitors, for an interlocutor. Results indicate that bvFTD patients are impaired relative to control subjects in selecting the optimal, precise response. Neuropsychological testing related this performance to mental set shifting, but not to working memory or inhibition. Follow-up analyses indicated that some bvFTD patients perform equally well as control subjects, while a second, clinically matched patient group performs significantly worse. Importantly, the neuropsychological profiles of these subgroups differed only in set shifting. Finally, structural MRI analyses related patient impairment to gray matter disease in orbitofrontal, medial prefrontal, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, all regions previously implicated in social cognition and overlapping those related to set shifting. Complementary white matter analyses implicated uncinate fasciculus, which carries projections between orbitofrontal and temporal cortices. Together, these findings demonstrate that impaired referential communication in bvFTD is cognitively related to set shifting, and anatomically related to a social-executive network including prefrontal cortices and uncinate fasciculus.
|
|
| 2. |
- Spotorno, Nicola, et al.
(författare)
-
Diffusion tensor MRI to distinguish progressive supranuclear palsy from a-synucleinopathies
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Radiology. - : Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). - 0033-8419 .- 1527-1315. ; 293:3, s. 646-653
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The differential diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and Lewy body disorders, which include Parkinson disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, is often challenging due to the overlapping symptoms. Purpose: To develop a diagnostic tool based on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to distinguish between PSP and Lewy body disorders at the individual-subject level. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, skeletonized DTI metrics were extracted from two independent data sets: the discovery cohort from the Swedish BioFINDER study and the validation cohort from the Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center (data collected between 2010 and 2018). Based on previous neuroimaging studies and neuropathologic evidence, a combination of regions hypothesized to be sensitive to pathologic features of PSP were identified (ie, the superior cerebellar peduncle and frontal white matter) and fractional anisotropy (FA) was used to compute an FA score for each individual. Classification performances were assessed by using logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic analysis. Results: In the discovery cohort, 16 patients with PSP (mean age 6 standard deviation, 73 years 6 5; eight women, eight men), 34 patients with Lewy body disorders (mean age, 71 years 6 6; 14 women, 20 men), and 44 healthy control participants (mean age, 66 years 6 8; 26 women, 18 men) were evaluated. The FA score distinguished between clinical PSP and Lewy body disorders with an area under the curve of 0.97 6 0.04, a specificity of 91% (31 of 34), and a sensitivity of 94% (15 of 16). In the validation cohort, 34 patients with PSP (69 years 6 7; 22 women, 12 men), 25 patients with Lewy body disorders (70 years 6 7; nine women, 16 men), and 32 healthy control participants (64 years 6 7; 22 women, 10 men) were evaluated. The accuracy of the FA score was confirmed (area under the curve, 0.96 6 0.04; specificity, 96% [24 of 25]; and sensitivity, 85% [29 of 34]). Conclusion: These cross-validated findings lay the foundation for a clinical test to distinguish progressive supranuclear palsy from Lewy body disorders.
|
|
