TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparison of Prefrontal Atrophy and Episodic Memory Performance in Dysexecutive Alzheimer's Disease and Behavioral-Variant Frontotemporal Dementia
AU - Wong, Stephanie
AU - Bertoux, Maxime
AU - Savage, Greg
AU - Hodges, John R.
AU - Piguet, Olivier
AU - Hornberger, Michael
PY - 2016/3/30
Y1 - 2016/3/30
N2 - Alzheimer's disease (AD) sometimes presents with prominent executive dysfunction and associated prefrontal cortex atrophy. The impact of such executive deficits on episodic memory performance as well as their neural correlates in AD, however, remains unclear. The aim of the current study was to investigate episodic memory and brain atrophy in AD patients with relatively spared executive functioning (SEF-AD; n = 12) and AD patients with relatively impaired executive functioning (IEF-AD; n = 23). We also compared the AD subgroups with a group of behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia patients (bvFTD; n = 22), who typically exhibit significant executive deficits, and age-matched healthy controls (n = 38). On cognitive testing, the three patient groups showed comparable memory profiles on standard episodic memory tests, with significant impairment relative to controls. Voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed extensive prefrontal and medial temporal lobe atrophy in IEF-AD and bvFTD, whereas thiswas limited to the middle frontal gyrus and hippocampus in SEF-AD. Moreover, the additional prefrontal atrophy in IEF-AD and bvFTD correlated with memory performance, whereas this was not the case for SEF-AD. These findings indicate that IEF-AD patients show prefrontal atrophy in regions similar to bvFTD, and suggest that this contributes to episodic memory performance. This has implications for the differential diagnosis of bvFTD and subtypes of AD.
AB - Alzheimer's disease (AD) sometimes presents with prominent executive dysfunction and associated prefrontal cortex atrophy. The impact of such executive deficits on episodic memory performance as well as their neural correlates in AD, however, remains unclear. The aim of the current study was to investigate episodic memory and brain atrophy in AD patients with relatively spared executive functioning (SEF-AD; n = 12) and AD patients with relatively impaired executive functioning (IEF-AD; n = 23). We also compared the AD subgroups with a group of behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia patients (bvFTD; n = 22), who typically exhibit significant executive deficits, and age-matched healthy controls (n = 38). On cognitive testing, the three patient groups showed comparable memory profiles on standard episodic memory tests, with significant impairment relative to controls. Voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed extensive prefrontal and medial temporal lobe atrophy in IEF-AD and bvFTD, whereas thiswas limited to the middle frontal gyrus and hippocampus in SEF-AD. Moreover, the additional prefrontal atrophy in IEF-AD and bvFTD correlated with memory performance, whereas this was not the case for SEF-AD. These findings indicate that IEF-AD patients show prefrontal atrophy in regions similar to bvFTD, and suggest that this contributes to episodic memory performance. This has implications for the differential diagnosis of bvFTD and subtypes of AD.
KW - Alzheimer's disease
KW - executive function
KW - frontotemporal dementia
KW - memory
KW - neuropsychology
KW - prefrontal cortex
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84963772898&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/NHMRC/1037746
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/ARC/CE11000102
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/NHMRC/1103258
U2 - 10.3233/JAD-151016
DO - 10.3233/JAD-151016
M3 - Article
C2 - 26923025
AN - SCOPUS:84963772898
SN - 1387-2877
VL - 51
SP - 889
EP - 903
JO - Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
JF - Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
IS - 3
ER -