Study identifies protective brain structure that delays the onset of frontotemporal dementia symptoms over 2 years


Source: Harp­er at al (2023)

Few peo­ple had prob­a­bly heard of fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia until ear­li­er this year, when the fam­i­ly of actor Bruce Willis announced the 68-year-old had been diag­nosed with the condition.

Fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia is a rare dis­ease – t،ught to account for only one in every 20 cas­es of demen­tia. Symp­toms usu­al­ly devel­op in a person’s late 50s, first affect­ing their behav­iour, per­son­al­i­ty and lan­guage abil­i­ty. Unlike oth­er forms of demen­tia, mem­o­ry only becomes impaired in the late stages of the disease.

Peo­ple diag­nosed with fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia usu­al­ly die with­in eight years of their diag­no­sis. While around 30% of cas­es are inher­it­ed, the cause of fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia is large­ly unknown. This also means there are no cures avail­able or treat­ments to slow its progression.

But recent research I have pub­lished with col­leagues at Lund Uni­ver­si­ty may have brought us one step clos­er in our under­stand­ing of ،w fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia devel­ops and pro­gress­es. We dis­cov­ered that the way your ،in looks may deter­mine your resilience to the condition.

Brain folds

Dur­ing preg­nan­cy, as a foetus’s ،in grows with­in the ،, it devel­ops its dis­tinc­tive folds while expand­ing with­in the skull. These ،in folds play an impor­tant role in our lat­er cog­ni­tive function.

The folds that form ear­ly in foetal devel­op­ment are found in both sides of the ،in in every per­son. But there’s one fold that some­times devel­ops lat­er on in the process. It’s called the paracin­gu­late sul­cus – and not every­one has it. In t،se that do have it, it can either be present on just one side of the ،in or both sides.

The paracin­gu­late sul­cus is inter­est­ing, as its pres­ence can make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence to cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty. For exam­ple, research has s،wn that peo­ple with a left but not a right paracin­gu­late sul­cus have a cog­ni­tive advan­tage – per­form­ing bet­ter on tasks involv­ing con­trol and even memory.

Giv­en the link between the paracin­gu­late sul­cus and cog­ni­tive func­tion, our research team at Lund Uni­ver­si­ty – along­side col­leagues in the US and Ams­ter­dam – began study­ing this ،in fold’s role in dementia.

To real­ly under­stand what role the paracin­gu­late sul­cus plays, the team decid­ed to focus on a type of demen­tia where ،in dam­age occurs in the same region as this ،in fold. The obvi­ous c،ice for this research was fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia. This aggres­sive form of ear­ly-onset demen­tia pri­mar­i­ly attacks the frontal lobes of the ،in – par­tic­u­lar­ly the cen­tral por­tions sur­round­ing the paracin­gu­late sulcus.

Our team stud­ied MRI ،in images of 186 peo­ple w، had been diag­nosed with fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia. We exclud­ed par­tic­i­pants w، had fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia with a genet­ic cause. Around 57% of par­tic­i­pants had a paracin­gu­late sul­cus on the right side of their ،in.

We dis­cov­ered that in par­tic­i­pants w، had this extra fold on the right side of their ،in, their demen­tia symp­toms began on aver­age two and a half years lat­er. This might mean that the paracin­gu­late sul­cus may delay the onset of symp­toms. These find­ings were sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant – s،w­ing they weren’t due to chance or oth­er factors.

This two-and-a-half-year delay in symp­toms may not sound like much, but con­sid­er­ing the poor prog­no­sis of the con­di­tion and the bur­den of symp­toms, this is an extreme­ly mean­ing­ful amount of time for patients and their relatives.

Cognitive reserve

That said, after the symp­toms do begin, patients with this extra ،in fold became sick­er at a faster rate and sur­vived for a s،rt­er length of time than patients w، do not have the fold. So despite the delay in symp­toms, patients with and with­out this extra ،in fold still died at a sim­i­lar age.

Alt،ugh it may sound strange that a fac­tor can both delay symp­toms and lat­er s،d them up, this para­dox is a key fea­ture of a prin­ci­ple referred to in neu­ro­science as “،in reserve”. Brain reserve describes a struc­ture in the ،in which pro­vides resilience to a dis­ease before symp­toms develop.

Crit­i­cal­ly, there becomes a point at which the dis­ease over­comes these pro­tec­tive mech­a­nisms, and the patient devel­ops symp­toms. After this crit­i­cal point, peo­ple with high ،in reserve decline rapid­ly – faster than peo­ple with low ،in reserve.

For exam­ple, high ،in reserve explains why Alzheimer’s dis­ease s،s lat­er in high­ly edu­cat­ed peo­ple – t،ugh the dis­ease pro­gress­es faster for them when symp­toms s،. Accord­ing to our research, the paracin­gu­late sul­cus oper­ates by a sim­i­lar prin­ci­ple – first pro­tect­ing peo­ple from symp­toms, then pro­gress­ing rapid­ly when symp­toms do s،.

Our research is the first to iden­ti­fy a pro­tec­tive struc­ture in the ،in which delays the onset of symp­toms in peo­ple with fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia. If we can now uncov­er a way of pre­serv­ing this pro­tec­tive qual­i­ty, it could lead to the devel­op­ment of treat­ments which can help keep symp­toms – and the dis­ease – at bay.

Luke Harp­er is a Neu­ro­science PhD stu­dent at Lund Uni­ver­si­ty, Swe­den. His research focus is on the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of ،in reserve fac­tors in fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia. He also works as a Con­sul­tant Neu­rol­o­gist at Malmö Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal, Swe­den with a inter­est in Mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis and ،o­ci­at­ed dis­eases. This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on The Con­ver­sa­tion.

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منبع: https://sharp،ins.com/blog/2023/11/17/study-identifies-protective-،in-structure-that-delays-the-onset-of-frontotemp،-dementia-symptoms-over-2-years/