Suárez-González Aida, Lehmann Manja, Shakespeare Timothy J, Yong Keir X X, Paterson Ross W, Slattery Catherine F, Foulkes Alexander J M, Rabinovici Gil D, Gil-Néciga Eulogio, Roldán-Lora Florinda, Schott Jonathan M, Fox Nick C, Crutch Sebastian J
Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK; Department of Neurology, University Hospital Virgen del Rocio, Seville, Spain.
Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK; Memory and Aging Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
Neurobiol Aging. 2016 Aug;44:108-113. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2016.04.012. Epub 2016 Apr 25.
Age at onset (AAO) has been shown to influence the phenotype of Alzheimer's disease (AD), but how it affects atypical presentations of AD remains unknown. Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is the most common form of atypical AD. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of AAO on cortical thickness and cognitive function in 98 PCA patients. We used Freesurfer (v5.3.0) to compare cortical thickness with AAO both as a continuous variable, and by dichotomizing the groups based on median age (58 years). In both the continuous and dichotomized analyses, we found a pattern suggestive of thinner cortex in precuneus and parietal areas in earlier-onset PCA, and lower cortical thickness in anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex in later-onset PCA. These cortical thickness differences between PCA subgroups were consistent with earlier-onset PCA patients performing worse on cognitive tests involving parietal functions. Our results provide a suggestion that AAO may not only affect the clinico-anatomical characteristics in AD but may also affect atrophy patterns and cognition within atypical AD phenotypes.
发病年龄（AAO）已被证明会影响阿尔茨海默病（AD）的表型，但它如何影响AD的非典型表现仍不清楚。后皮质萎缩（PCA）是最常见的非典型AD形式。在本研究中，我们旨在调查98例PCA患者的发病年龄对皮质厚度和认知功能的影响。我们使用Freesurfer（v5.3.0）将皮质厚度与发病年龄作为连续变量进行比较，并根据中位年龄（58岁）将患者分为两组进行比较。在连续分析和分组分析中，我们均发现早发型PCA患者的楔前叶和顶叶区域皮质较薄，而晚发型PCA患者的前扣带回和前额叶皮质厚度较低。PCA亚组之间的这些皮质厚度差异与早发型PCA患者在涉及顶叶功能的认知测试中表现较差一致。我们的结果表明，发病年龄不仅可能影响AD的临床解剖特征，还可能影响非典型AD表型中的萎缩模式和认知。
