scholarly journals First Symptoms of Primary Progressive Aphasia and Alzheimer's Disease in Brazilian Individuals

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talita Gallas dos Reis ◽  
Thais Helena Machado ◽  
Paulo Caramelli ◽  
Francisco Scornavacca ◽  
Liana Lisboa Fernandez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Differential Diagnosis ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Motor Speech ◽  
Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Primary Progressive ◽  
Initial Symptoms ◽  
Semantic Variant

Background: Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is characterized by progressive language impairment due to focal degeneration of brain areas related to linguistic processing. The detection and differential diagnosis of PPA can be difficult with clinical features that may overlap with features of other neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). The scientific production on PPA in Latin American patients is still scarce. This study investigated the first symptoms in a Brazilian sample of patients with PPA in comparison with AD patients.Method: We compared the first symptoms reported by caregivers of people with PPA (n = 20; semantic variant n = 8, non-fluent variant n = 7, logopenic variant n = 3, and unclassified cases n = 2) and AD (n = 16). Data were collected through the application of a structured questionnaire that was presented in an interview format to the caregiver who knew the patient best.Results: Anomia, paraphasias and motor speech difficulties were the first symptoms capable of differentiating patients with PPA from those with AD, while memory was exclusive of AD. Among the PPA variants, anomia was the initial symptom associated with the semantic variant, while motor speech difficulties were associated with the non-fluent variant. The results are discussed considering the unique cultural and sociodemographic characteristics of this studied population.Conclusion: This study demonstrated that some of the initial symptoms of PPA patients may be unique to clinical variants of PPA and of AD, and their investigation may be useful for the early and differential diagnosis of this population.

scholarly journals Parietal Involvement in the Semantic Variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia with Alzheimer’s Disease Cerebrospinal Fluid Profile

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Géraldine Bera ◽  
Raffaella Migliaccio ◽  
Thibaut Michelin ◽  
Foudil Lamari ◽  
Sophie Ferrieux ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Cerebrospinal Fluid ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Primary Progressive ◽  
Semantic Variant

scholarly journals Laughter as a Paradigm of Socio-emotional Signal Processing in Dementia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harri Sivasathiaseelan ◽  
Charles R Marshall ◽  
Elia Benhamou ◽  
Janneke EP van Leeuwen ◽  
Rebecca L Bond ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Signal Processing ◽  
Frontotemporal Dementia ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Primary Progressive ◽  
Emotional Dysfunction ◽  
Semantic Variant

Abstract Background: Laughter is a fundamental communicative signal in our relations with other people and is used to convey a diverse repertoire of social and emotional information. It is therefore potentially a useful probe of impaired socio-emotional signal processing in neurodegenerative diseases. Here we investigated the cognitive and affective processing of laughter systematically in patients representing all major syndromes of frontotemporal dementia, a disease spectrum characterised by severe socio-emotional dysfunction, as well as typical amnestic Alzheimer’s disease in relation to healthy age-matched individuals. Methods: We assessed cognitive labelling and valence rating of samples of spontaneous (mirthful and hostile) and volitional (posed) laughter versus two auditory control conditions (a synthetic laughter-like stimulus and spoken numbers) in 47 patients with frontotemporal dementia (22 with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, 12 with semantic variant primary progressive aphasia and 13 with nonfluent-agrammatic primary progressive aphasia), 15 patients with typical amnestic Alzheimer’s disease and 20 healthy age-matched individuals. Neuroanatomical associations of laughter processing were assessed using voxel-based morphometry of patients’ brain MR images. Results: While all dementia syndromes were associated with impaired identification of laughter subtypes relative to healthy controls, this was significantly more severe overall in frontotemporal dementia than in Alzheimer’s disease and particularly in the behavioural and semantic variants, which also showed abnormal affective evaluation of laughter. Certain striking syndromic signatures emerged, including enhanced liking for hostile laughter in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, impaired processing of synthetic laughter in the nonfluent-agrammatic variant (consistent with a generic complex auditory perceptual deficit) and ‘numerophilia’ in the semantic variant. Across the patient cohort, overall laughter identification accuracy correlated with regional grey matter in a core network encompassing inferior frontal and cingulo-insular cortices; and more specific correlates of laughter identification accuracy were delineated in cortical regions mediating affective disambiguation (identification of hostile and posed laughter in orbitofrontal cortex) and authenticity (social intent) decoding (identification of mirthful and posed laughter in anteromedial prefrontal cortex).Conclusions: These findings reveal a rich diversity of cognitive and affective laughter phenotypes in canonical dementia syndromes and suggest that laughter is an informative probe of neural mechanisms underpinning socio-emotional dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease.

The Combination of Metabolic Posterior Cingulate Cortical Abnormalities and Structural Asymmetries Improves the Differential Diagnosis Between Primary Progressive Aphasia and Alzheimer’s Disease

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Micaela Mitolo ◽  
Michelangelo Stanzani-Maserati ◽  
David N. Manners ◽  
Sabina Capellari ◽  
Claudia Testa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Differential Diagnosis ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Structural Imaging ◽  
Proton Mr Spectroscopy ◽  
Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Posterior Cingulate ◽  
Primary Progressive

Differential diagnosis between primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) could be difficult if based on clinical grounds alone. We evaluated the combination of proton MR spectroscopy of posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and quantitative structural imaging asymmetries to differentiate PPA from AD patients. A greater left-lateralized temporo-parietal atrophy (higher accuracy for the PCC, 81.4%) and metabolic neurodegenerative changes in PCC (accuracy 76.8%) was demonstrated in PPA versus AD. The combined multiparametric approach increased the accuracy to 94%in the differential diagnosis between these two neurodegenerative diseases.

scholarly journals Deformation-based shape analysis of the hippocampus in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia and Alzheimer’s disease

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 102305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Chapleau ◽  
Christophe Bedetti ◽  
Gabriel A. Devenyi ◽  
Signy Sheldon ◽  
Howie J. Rosen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Shape Analysis ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Primary Progressive ◽  
Semantic Variant
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