Neuropsychological and Neuroanatomical Features of Patients with Behavioral/Dysexecutive Variant Alzheimer's Disease (AD): A Comparison to Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia and Amnestic AD Groups.

Background: An understudied variant of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the behavioral/dysexecutive variant of AD (bvAD), is associated with progressive personality, behavior, and/or executive dysfunction and frontal atrophy.

Objective: This study characterizes the neuropsychological and neuroanatomical features associated with bvAD by comparing it to behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), amnestic AD (aAD), and subjects with normal cognition.

Methods: Subjects included 16 bvAD, 67 bvFTD, 18 aAD patients, and 26 healthy controls.

Frontal Atrophy and Executive Dysfunction Relate to Complex Numbers Impairment in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Background: Previous research finds a range of numbers impairments in Parkinsonian syndromes (PS), but has largely focused on how visuospatial impairments impact deficits in basic numerical processes (e.g., magnitude judgments, chunking).

Longitudinal naming and repetition relates to AD pathology and burden in autopsy-confirmed primary progressive aphasia.

Introduction: In primary progressive aphasia (PPA) patients with autopsy-confirmed Alzheimer's disease (AD) or frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FLTD), we tested how the core clinical features of logopenic PPA-naming and repetition-change over time and relate to pathologic burden.

Methods: In PPA with AD (n = 13) or FTLD (n = 16) pathology, Boston Naming Test and Forward Digit Span measured longitudinal naming and repetition; as reference, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) measured global cognition. Pathologic burden in left peri-Sylvian regions was related to longitudinal cognitive decline.

Social and leisure activity are associated with attenuated cortical loss in behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration.

Behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration (bvFTD) is clinically characterized by progressive decline in social and executive domains. Previous work suggests that early lifestyle factors such as education and occupational attainment may relate to structural integrity and moderate the rate of cognitive decline in bvFTD, but the role of other cognitively stimulating activities is understudied. We sought to investigate the effect of such activities on cortical thickness (CT) in bvFTD.

ATN incorporating cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light chain detects frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

Introduction: The ATN framework provides an in vivo diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of pathologic amyloid plaques (A), tangles (T), and neurodegeneration (N). ATN is rarely evaluated in pathologically confirmed patients and its poor sensitivity to suspected non-Alzheimer's pathophysiologies (SNAP), including frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), leads to misdiagnoses. We compared accuracy of ATN (ATN ) using CSF total tau (t-tau) to a modified strategy (ATN ) using CSF neurofilament light chain (NfL) in an autopsy cohort.

Pazopanib Reduces Phosphorylated Tau Levels and Alters Astrocytes in a Mouse Model of Tauopathy.

Hyperphosphorylation and aggregation of tau protein is a critical factor in many neurodegenerative diseases. These diseases are increasing in prevalence, and there are currently no cures. Previous work from our group and others has shown that tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) can stimulate autophagy, decrease pathological proteins, and improve symptoms in models of neurodegeneration.