Gray‐matter degeneration in presenile alzheimer's disease

Previous comparisons between presenile Alzheimer's disease (AD) and senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) did not control for disease severity and duration. In the current study, 18 patients with each diagnosis were matched for disease duration, cognitive dysfunction, and behavioral symptoms (using the modified Mini‐Mental Status [mMMS] examination and the Blessed Dementia Rating Scale [BDRS]). Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was quantified by the 133xenon inhalation technique, and several indices of tissue perfusion were examined. The two variables of primary interest were relative gray‐matter weight and a gray‐matter perfusion index, the initial slope index. Presenile onset was associated with loss of gray‐matter relative weight (35% in presenile patients versus 39% in senile patients and healthy control subjects, p = 0.006), with neither perfusion nor disease severity differences between the two dementia samples. This loss of gray matter was significantly related to both severity and duration of disease in the patients with presenile AD, but not in patients with SDAT. These findings lend support to previous suggestions of greater degenerative process in presenile AD and confirm the need to examine and control age of onset in future investigations of AD. Further, correlation analysis suggests greater proportion of common variance among clinical and physiological indices in presenile AD.

[1]  M. Reivich,et al.  Further Studies on Exponential Models of Cerebral Clearance Curves , 1969 .

[2]  D. Ingvar,et al.  Regional cerebral blood flow in senile and presenile dementia , 1970, Neurology.

[3]  H. C. Engell,et al.  Measurement of cerebral blood flow by intravenous xenon-133 technique and a mobile system. Reproducibility using the Obrist model compared to total curve analysis. , 1986, Neurological research.

[4]  H. Thompson,et al.  Regional cerebral blood flow estimated by /sup 133/Xe inhalation , 1975 .

[5]  J. Coyle,et al.  Jo U Rnal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism Decreased Cortical Glucose Utilization after Ibotenate Lesion of the Rat Ventromedial Globus Pallidus , 2022 .

[6]  D. Price,et al.  Amyotrophc Lateral Sclerosis: Alterations in Neurotransmitter Receptors , 2004 .

[7]  E. Skinhøj,et al.  In vivo measurements of the relative weights of gray and white matter in the human brain , 1966, Neurology.

[8]  D. Neary,et al.  Alzheimer's disease: a correlative study. , 1986, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[9]  M. Pontecorvo,et al.  Selective memory loss following nucleus basalis lesions: Long term behavioral recovery despite persistent cholinergic deficiencies , 1985, Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior.

[10]  F. Mcdowell,et al.  Factors associated with duration of survival in Alzheimer's disease , 1985, Biological Psychiatry.

[11]  R. Mayeux,et al.  Depression, intellectual impairment, and Parkinson disease , 1981, Neurology.

[12]  H. Sackeim,et al.  Cerebral perfusion as a diagnostic marker of early Alzheimer's disease , 1988, Neurology.

[13]  L. Iversen,et al.  Neurochemical characteristics of early and late onset types of Alzheimer's disease. , 1984, British medical journal.

[14]  S. M. Sumi,et al.  Subcortical degeneration in Alzheimer's disease , 1985, Neurology.

[15]  S. M. Sumi,et al.  Alzheimer's disease: Choline acetyltransferase activity in brain tissue from clinical and pathological subgroups , 1983, Annals of neurology.

[16]  A. Brun,et al.  A white matter disorder in dementia of the Alzheimer type: A pathoanatomical study , 1986, Annals of neurology.

[17]  J. Risberg,et al.  Theoretical Evaluation and Simulation Test of the Initial Slope Index for Noninvasive rCBF , 1985 .

[18]  A. Germenis,et al.  C3 polymorphism in Greece. , 1985, Human heredity.

[19]  M. Roth,et al.  The Association Between Quantitative Measures of Dementia and of Senile Change in the Cerebral Grey Matter of Elderly Subjects , 1968, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[20]  F. Boller,et al.  Platelet membrane abnormality in Alzheimer's disease , 1987, Annals of neurology.

[21]  W. Obrist,et al.  Regional cerebral blood flow estimated by 133-xenon inhalation. , 1975, Stroke.

[22]  L. Iversen,et al.  Correlation of cortical cholinergic and GABA deficits with quantitative neuropathological findings in senile dementia. , 1984, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[23]  S. Folstein,et al.  "Mini-mental state". A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. , 1975, Journal of psychiatric research.

[24]  C. P. Hughes,et al.  Mild senile dementia of Alzheimer type: research diagnostic criteria, recruitment, and description of a study population. , 1982, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[25]  K. Kohlmeyer,et al.  CT assessment of CSF spaces in the brain in demented and nondemented patients over 60 years of age. , 1983, AJNR. American journal of neuroradiology.

[26]  R. DeTeresa,et al.  Some morphometric aspects of the brain in senile dementia of the alzheimer type , 1981, Annals of neurology.

[27]  M. Albert,et al.  Ventricular size in patients with presenile dementia of the Alzheimer's type. , 1984, Archives of neurology.

[28]  R. Ojemann,et al.  Thresholds of focal cerebral ischemia in awake monkeys. , 1981, Journal of neurosurgery.

[29]  G. Deutsch,et al.  Cerebral blood flow in severity‐matched Alzheirner and multi‐infarct patients , 1987, Neurology.