Monday, December 07, 2009

Clinical syndromes associated with posterior cortical atrophy

Early age at onset AD spectrum. Migliaccio R, Agosta F et al. Neurology 2009; 1571-1578

Authors compared posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) and logopenic progressive aphasia (LPA) and early onset AD. N= 14, 10, 16 respectively with 65 healthy controls. Voxel based morphometry showed overlapping atrophy in bilateral parietal, occipital, precuneus, posterior cingulate, posterior temporal and hippocampal areas. Group specific atrophy was also seen in right ventral occipital and superior parietal in PCA, left MTG and STG in LPA, and prefrontal cortez in eo-AD. All had higher apoE frequency and about half of each group had cortical amyloid on pathology or PET. Authors propose the disorders are all Alzheimers "spectrum" diseases with overlapping elements.