EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 PM ET, February 17, 2021
White Matter Changes in Brain Found in Frontotemporal Dementia
MINNEAPOLIS - Areas of brain damage called white matter hyperintensities are commonly linked to vascular health problems. They have also been linked to Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. Now a new study has shown that white matter hyperintensities are also found in frontotemporal dementia. The study is published in the February 17, 2021, online issue of , the medical journal of the 好色先生. Frontotemporal dementia, which often affects people under the age of 65, mainly results in changes in personality, behavior and problems with language rather than memory. 鈥淲e were expecting to see similar amounts of white matter hyperintensities in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, but we actually found higher levels in people with frontotemporal dementia,鈥 said study author Ram贸n Landin-Romero, Ph.D., of the University of Sydney in Australia. 鈥淲e also expected to see that people with more severe disease would have more white matter hyperintensities, regardless of disease, but that was only true in people with frontotemporal dementia.鈥 The study involved 64 people with frontotemporal dementia, 65 people with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and 66 people without dementia who had brain scans and other tests. The participants were followed for an average of two years. Autopsy information was available for 13 of the people with frontotemporal dementia and five of the people with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. The researchers found that the total volume of white matter hyperintensities in the brain was larger in people with frontotemporal dementia than in the people with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease or the healthy control group. The average volume of white matter hyperintensities in people with frontotemporal dementia was 0.76 milliliters (mL) compared to 0.40 mL in people with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and 0.12 mL in people without dementia. The amount of white matter hyperintensities was associated with the severity of a person鈥檚 frontotemporal dementia, including the severity of their symptoms and everyday difficulties, but it was not associated with having vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol as was expected. 鈥淚n general, white matter hyperintensities have been associated with these vascular risk factors, so these results suggest that white matter hyperintensities are partly independent of vascular factors and associated with the progressive loss of brain integrity, more specifically the loss of brain cells, due to frontotemporal dementia,鈥 Landin-Romero said. 鈥淲hite matter hyperintensities should be viewed as a core feature of frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease that can contribute to cognitive problems, not simply a marker of vascular disease.鈥 The researchers also found that higher amounts of white matter hyperintensities in certain areas of the brain were associated with worse cognitive performance. For example, in both frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, increased white matter hyperintensities in the corpus callosum, a bundle of white matter fibers connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain, was associated with attention problems. A limitation of the study was that autopsy information was available for only a small number of cases, so the underlying molecular cause of the white matter hyperintensities could not be determined for participants. The study was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and by the Appenzeller Neuroscience Fellowship in Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. Learn more about brain health at , home of the 好色先生鈥檚 free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life庐 on , and .