Patterns of cortical thinning in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia

Richards, Blake A.; Chertkow, Howard; Singh, Vivek; Robillard, Alain; Massoud, Fadi; Evans, Alan C.; Kabani, Noor Jehan

doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2007.12.019

« Previous Next »Neurobiology of Aging
Volume 30, Issue 10 , Pages 1626-1636, October 2009

Patterns of cortical thinning in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia

Blake A. Richards
- Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 3080 Yonge Street, Suite 6020, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3N1, Canada
Howard Chertkow
- Lady Davis Institute, Bloomfield Centre for Research in Aging, Room 408, 3755 Cote Street, Catherine Road, Montreal, Quebec H3T 1E2, Canada
Vivek Singh
- Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 3080 Yonge Street, Suite 6020, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3N1, Canada
Alain Robillard
- Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, 5415 Blvd. L’Assomption. 3ième étage, Corridor E, Montréal, Québec H1T 2M4, Canada
Fadi Massoud
- Hôpital Notre-Dame, Service de gériatrie., 1560 Sherbrooke Est., Montréal, Québec H2L 4M1, Canada
Alan C. Evans
- McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada
Noor Jehan Kabani
- Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 3080 Yonge Street, Suite 6020, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3N1, Canada
- Corresponding author at: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Clinical Integrative Biology, 3080 Yonge Street, Suite 6020, PO Box 89, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3N1, Canada. Tel.: +1 416 482 3819; fax: +1 416 482 3807.

Received 21 March 2007; received in revised form 5 December 2007; accepted 19 December 2007. published online 13 February 2008.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Cortical thickness, Magnetic resonance imaging, Aging