The role of blood-based biomarkers in Parkinsonian disorders, Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia.

The complexity of neurodegenerative disorders necessitates an integrative approach that incorporates morphological, functional, and molecular biomarkers. The advent of highly sensitive single-molecule array (Simoa®) assays has significantly enhanced the accuracy of blood-based biomarker quantification, including glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light chain (NfL), and phosphorylated tau181 (p-tau181). This study evaluates the diagnostic utility of these biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases.

Impact of Lewy bodies disease on visual skills and memory abilities: from prodromal stages to dementia.

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and its prodromal presentation with mild cognitive impairment is characterized by prominent deficits in attention/executive domains and in visual processing abilities with relative sparing of memory. Neuropsychological research is continuously refining the tools to define more in detail the patterns of relatively preserved and impaired cognitive abilities that help differential diagnosis between DLB and Alzheimer disease (AD). This review summarizes the main studies exploring specific cognitive tasks investigating different visual processing abilities and verbal memory that better differentiate DLB from AD.

Resting-state EEG spectral and fractal features in dementia with Lewy bodies with and without visual hallucinations.

Objective: Complex visual hallucinations (VH) are a core feature of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), though they may not occur in all patients. Power spectral density (PSD) analysis of resting-state EEG (rs-EEG) shows associations between some frequency bands (e.g.

BPSDiary study protocol: a multi-center randomized controlled trial to compare the efficacy of a BPSD diary vs. standard care in reducing caregiver's burden.

Unlabelled: Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) are a heterogeneous set of psychological and behavioral abnormalities seen in persons with dementia (PwD), significantly impacting their quality of life and that of their caregivers. Current assessment tools, such as the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), are limited by recall bias and lack of direct observation. This study aims to overcome this limitation by making caregiver reports more objective through the use of a novel instrument, referred to as the BPSDiary.

Data-driven analysis of regional brain metabolism in behavioral frontotemporal dementia and late-onset primary psychiatric diseases with frontal lobe syndrome: A PET/MRI study.

Late-onset primary psychiatric disease (PPD) and behavioral frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) present with a similar frontal lobe syndrome. We compare brain glucose metabolism in bvFTD and late-onset PPD and investigate the metabolic correlates of cognitive and behavioral disturbances through FDG-PET/MRI. We studied 37 bvFTD and 20 late-onset PPD with a mean clinical follow-up of three years.

Episodic Memory in Amnestic Behavioral Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease.

Behavioral frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) may present with episodic memory deficits. In 38 patients with bvFTD and 61 with Alzheimer's disease (AD) specific measures of verbal memory (learning curves and serial position effects) were studied through the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning test. Forty-two percent of bvFTD showed deficits of delayed recall memory similar to that found in AD including the serial position effects.

Depression, Anxiety and Sleep Alterations in Caregivers of Persons With Dementia After 1-Year of COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: Social isolation due to COVID-19 pandemic has an important psychological impact particularly in persons with dementia and their informal caregivers.

Aim: To assess frequency and severity of long-term stress-related symptoms in caregivers of patients with dementia 1-year after the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic and to identify predictors of psychological outcomes.

Methods: Eighty-five caregivers were involved in a longitudinal study with 1-year follow-up during pandemic in Italy.

Brain Stem Glucose Hypermetabolism in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/Frontotemporal Dementia and Shortened Survival: An F-FDG PET/MRI Study.

A few F-FDG PET/CT studies have revealed the presence of brain hypermetabolism in the brain stem and cervical spinal cord of patients within the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/frontotemporal dementia (ALS/FTD) continuum. We aimed to investigate this finding through a hybrid PET/MRI system, allowing a more precise depiction of the spatial pattern of metabolic changes in the brain stem and cervical spinal cord. Twenty-eight patients with a diagnosis of ALS or a diagnosis of the behavioral variant of FTD plus motoneuron disease, as well as 13 control subjects, underwent F-FDG PET/MRI.

Cognitive correlates and baseline predictors of future development of visual hallucinations in dementia with Lewy bodies.

Visual hallucinations (VH) are common in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and are among the core symptoms for its clinical diagnosis. VH have been associated with cognitive alterations, although research findings in this area are still limited. The present study aimed at investigating the cognitive correlates of VH in DLB, and the baseline neuropsychological features predicting the future development of VH.

Subjective experience of time in dementia with Lewy bodies during COVID-19 lockdown.

Unlabelled: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by cognitive, behavioral and motor symptoms and has a more challenging clinical management and poorer prognosis compared to other forms of dementia. The experience of lockdown leads to negative psychological outcomes for fragile people such as elderly with dementia, particularly for DLB, causing a worsening of cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Since an individual's feeling of time passage is strongly related to their cognitive and emotional state, it is conceivable to expect alterations of this construct in people with DLB during such a difficult period.

White matter abnormalities of right hemisphere attention networks contribute to visual hallucinations in dementia with Lewy bodies.

Objective: Functional alterations of the visual attention networks in a setting of impaired visual information processing have a role in the genesis of visual hallucinations (VH) in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). This multimodal MRI study aims at exploring structural and functional basis of VH.

Methods: 23 DLB patients (10 with and 13 without VH) and 13 healthy controls were studied.

Changes of Metabolic Connectivity in Dementia with Lewy Bodies with Visual Hallucinations: A F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography/Magnetic Resonance Study.

Recurrent complex visual hallucinations (VHs) are common in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Previous investigations suggest that VHs are associated with connectivity changes within and between large scale networks involved in visual processing and attention. To examine more directly whether VH in DLB reflects direct changes in neuronal activity between cortical regions assessing metabolic connectivity with F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET)/magnetic resonance and graph theory.

The Impact of COVID-19 Quarantine on Patients With Dementia and Family Caregivers: A Nation-Wide Survey.

Introduction: Previous studies showed that quarantine for pandemic diseases is associated with several psychological and medical effects. The consequences of quarantine for COVID-19 pandemic in patients with dementia are unknown. We investigated the clinical changes in patients with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, and evaluated caregivers' distress during COVID-19 quarantine.

Psychiatric Phenocopy Syndrome of Behavioral Frontotemporal Dementia: Behavioral and Cognitive Fingerprint.

Behavioral and cognitive variables predicting behavioral frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) versus primary psychiatric disorders mimicking bvFTD (phenocopy syndrome: bvFTD-PS) were studied. Forty-one probable/definite bvFTD and 16 bvFTD-PS patients were evaluated with cognitive battery, Neuropsychiatric Inventory, and Stereotypic and Ritualistic Behavior-revised questionnaires. Twenty-seven healthy subjects served as control.

Specific Verbal Memory Measures May Distinguish Alzheimer's Disease from Dementia with Lewy Bodies.

Background: Standard measures of commonly used memory tests may not be appropriate to distinguish different neurodegenerative diseases affecting memory.

Objective: To study whether specific measures of verbal memory obtained with the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning test (RAVLT) could help distinguish dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) from Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Methods: Twenty-nine DLB and 32 AD patients participated in the study and were followed longitudinally for 3 years until the diagnosis was confirmed according to standard clinical criteria.

Clinical and Cognitive Phenotype of Mild Cognitive Impairment Evolving to Dementia with Lewy Bodies.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine which characteristics could better distinguish dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) from Alzheimer's disease (AD) at the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stage, with particular emphasis on visual space and object perception abilities.

Methods: Fifty-three patients with mild cognitive deficits that were eventually diagnosed with probable DLB (MCI-DLB: n = 25) and AD (MCI-AD: n = 28) at a 3-year follow-up were retrospectively studied. At the first visit, the patients underwent cognitive assessment including the Qualitative Scoring Mini Mental State Examination Pentagon Test and the Visual Object and Space Perception Battery.