Patterns of cortical thinning in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia.
In vivo measurement of cortical thickness is a sensitive representation of pathology in neurodegenerative disorders which primarily target the gray mantle. In this study we used magnetic resonance images to describe the patterns of cortical thinning in 11 frontotemporal dementia (FTD), 38 Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 34 healthy elderly (H(E)) subjects. AD and FTD displayed significant thinning of the cortical mantle compared to the H(E) group, but with distinctive distributions. AD subjects had significantly thinner cortex in all lobes whereas FTD compared to H(E) showed significant differences only in specific regions of frontal and temporal lobes. When compared to AD, the FTD subjects had a trend of thinner cortex in the anterior cingulate region and in selective regions of anterior frontal and temporal regions. In conclusion, the cortical thinning in dementia when compared to H(E), is disease specific whereby FTD subjects display a pattern distinct than that seen in Alzheimer's disease.
Richards
Blake A
BA
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 3080 Yonge Street, Suite 6020, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3N1, Canada. blake.richards@psy.ox.ac.uk
Chertkow
Howard
H
Singh
Vivek
V
Robillard
Alain
A
Massoud
Fadi
F
Evans
Alan C
AC
Kabani
Noor Jehan
NJ
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D001331:Automation; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D003704:Dementia / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size