Lewy body disease with and without dementia: a clinicopathological study of 35 cases.
The pathological basis for dementia in Lewy body disease (LBD) remains controversial. While some investigators propose that cortical lesions are responsible, others favor a subcortical basis for this dementia. Brains from 35 patients with LBD (11 demented with diffuse LBD; 12 demented and 12 non-demented with a brainstem type of LBD) were clinicopathologically examined to elucidate the pathological differences between demented and non-demented patients with LBD. In cases of diffuse LBD, the cortical lesions were found to be responsible for the dementia. In some of the cases (25%) with the brainstem type of LBD, the dementia was attributed to an Alzheimer pathology, while in many cases (75%), degeneration in the subcortical nuclei, mainly the nucleus basalis of Meynert, played a major role in the dementia.
Kosaka
K
K
Psychiatric Research Institute of Tokyo, Japan.
Tsuchiya
K
K
Yoshimura
M
M
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000473:pathology*; D003594:Cytoplasmic Granules / Q000473:pathology*; D003704:Dementia / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged