Decomposition of metabolic brain clusters in the frontal variant of frontotemporal dementia.
Previous studies that measured brain activity in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) used univariate analyses, examining each region of interest separately. We explored in a multicenter European research program the principal brain clusters characterized by a common variability in cerebral metabolism in FTD. Seventy patients with frontal variant (fv) FTD were selected according to international clinical recommendations; principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on FDG-PET metabolic images, looking for covariance clusters in this large population. A first metabolic cluster included most of the lateral and medial prefrontal cortex, bilaterally; PC1 scores correlated with performances on memory and executive neuropsychological tasks. Moreover, FDG-PET images in fv-FTD were further characterized by a metabolic covariance in two clusters comprising the subcallosal medial frontal region, the temporal pole, medial temporal structures and the striatum, separately in the left and in the right hemisphere. The study provides original data-driven arguments for metabolic involvement of separate brain clusters in the rostral limbic system, corresponding to pathological poles differentially affected in each FTD patient.
Salmon
Eric
E
Cyclotron Research Centre, University of Liege, B30 Sart Tilman, 4000 Liège, Belgium. eric.salmon@ulg.ac.be
Kerrouche
Nacer
N
Herholz
Karl
K
Perani
Daniela
D
Holthoff
Vjera
V
Beuthien-Baumann
Bettina
B
Degueldre
Christian
C
Lemaire
Christian
C
Luxen
André
A
Baron
Jean-Claude
JC
Collette
Fabienne
F
Garraux
Gaëtan
G
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism*; D003704:Dementia / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D011446:Prospective Studies; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012189:Retrospective Studies
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18