title: Histocompatibility antigens (HLA) and patterns of cognitive loss in dementia of the Alzheimer type.
abstract: Recent data suggest that a proportion of patients with primary neuronal degeneration of the Alzheimer type have the HLA-B7 antigen. However, the possibility that other differences might exist between patients with and without the marker has not been examined. We tested a range of cognitive skills in Alzheimer patients with and without the HLA-B7 to examine whether those individuals with the HLA marker would exhibit a profile of cognitive loss different from those without it. Our results indicate that patients with HLA-B7 antigens had selective attentional scores that were significantly lower than Alzheimer patients without the antigen. Neither group was significantly different in either memory capacity or retrieval from short-term and long-term memory. The data support the hypothesis that there may be more than one disorder in what is now referred to as dementia of the Alzheimer type.
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000276:immunology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000276:immunology*; D003704:Dementia / Q000276:immunology*; D006680:HLA Antigens / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D011581:Psychological Tests
chemical_list: D006680:HLA Antigens