Abstract
Background and purpose: A subset of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) present with early and prominent language deficits. It is unclear whether the burden of underlying β-amyloid pathology is associated with language or general cognitive impairment in these subjects. Methods: The relationship between cortical β-amyloid burden on [11C]Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) positron emission tomography (PET) and performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the Wechsler Memory Scale - Third Edition (WMS-III), the Boston Naming Test (BNT) and the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) was assessed using regression and correlation analyses in subjects presenting with aphasia who showed β-amyloid deposition on PiB PET. Results: The global PiB ratio was inversely correlated with MoCA (P = 0.02) and the WMS-III Visual Reproduction (VR) subtest (VR I, P = 0.02; VR II, P = 0.04). However, the correlations between PiB ratio, BNT (P = 0.13), WAB aphasia quotient (P = 0.11) and WAB repetition scores (P = 0.34) were not significant. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that an increased cortical β-amyloid burden is associated with cognitive impairment, but not language deficits, in AD subjects presenting with aphasia. The results suggest that β-amyloid deposition could be partly contributing to impaired cognition in such patients whilst language dysfunction may be more influenced by other pathological mechanisms, perhaps downstream pathways of β-amyloid deposition.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1040-1043 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | European Journal of Neurology |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2014 |
Keywords
- Aphasia
- Beta-amyloid
- Dementia
- PET
- PiB
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Neurology
- Clinical Neurology