Neurology: relationship between regional cortical network atrophy and primary progressive aphasia dementia

Patients with primary progressive aphasia develop language impairment
gradually at the beginning of the disease.
As the underlying neurodegenerative disease progresses, patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) begin to lose independent function
due to the development of nonverbal cognitive or behavioral symptoms.
The time to progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia is different
.

Recently, a study published in Neurology measured the degree of endothelial atrophy of functional networks through samples of PPA patients, concluded that these atrophy caused different cognitive and emotional functions, and evaluated the utility of this measure as a time prediction tool in PPA subsequent progression to dementia
.

PPA patients are mostly recruited independently for daily function through Massachusetts General Hospital for frontal temporal disease
.
All patients had MRI scans
at baseline.
Cortical atrophy
was then estimated relative to a group of amyloid-negative cognitively normal control participants.
For each patient, we measured the time between the baseline visit and the follow-up visit to record dementia progression or the
last observation.
Simple and multivariate Cox regression models are used to examine the relationship between cortical atrophy and the
likelihood of progression to dementia.

These results suggest that baseline atrophy of the cortical network of nonverbal cognitive and affective functions is a valid predictor
of progression to dementia in patients with PPA.
This measure should include PPA
in precision medicine prognostic models.

Sources:

Katsumi Y, Quimby M, Hochberg D, et al.
Association of Regional Cortical Network Atrophy With Progression to Dementia in Patients With Primary Progressive Aphasia [published online ahead of print, 2022 Oct 3].
Neurology.
2022; 10.
1212/WNL.
0000000000201403.
doi:10.
1212/WNL.
0000000000201403.