Posterior AD-type pathology: cognitive subtypes emerging from a cluster analysis

Antonella Cappa, Nicoletta Ciccarelli, Eleonora Baldonero, Marialuisa Martelli, Maria Caterina Silveri

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5 Citazioni (Scopus)

Abstract

"BACKGROUND: "Posterior shift" of the neuropathological changes of Alzheimer's disease (AD) produces a syndrome (posterior cortical atrophy) (PCA) dominated by high-level visual deficits. OBJECTIVE: To explore in patients with AD-type pathology whether a data-driven analysis (cluster analysis) based on neuropsychological findings resulted in the emergence of different subgroups of patients; in particular to find out whether it was possible to identify patients with visuospatial deficits consistent with the hypothesis that PCA is a "dorsal stream" syndrome or, rather, whether there were subgroups of patients with different types of impairment within the high-level visual domain. METHODS: 23 PCA and 16 DAT patients were studied. By a principal component analysis performed on a wide range of neuropsychological tasks, 15 variables were obtained that loaded onto five main factors (memory, language, perceptual, visuospatial, and calculation) which entered a hierarchical cluster analysis. RESULTS: Four clusters of cognitive impairment emerged: visuospatial/perceptual, memory, perceptual/calculation, and language. Only in the first cluster a visuospatial deficit clearly emerged. conclusions: AD pathology produces not only variants dominated by memory (DAT) and, to a lesser extent, visuospatial deficit (PCA), but also other distinct syndromic subtypes with disorders in visual perception and language which reflect a different vulnerability of specific functional networks.
Lingua originaleEnglish
pagine (da-a)1-8
Numero di pagine8
RivistaBehavioural Neurology
Volume2014
DOI
Stato di pubblicazionePubblicato - 2014

Keywords

  • Posterior cortical atrophy

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