Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD
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Apathy is a common and problematic symptom of several neurodegenerative illnesses, but its neuroanatomical bases are not understood. ⋯ The current study, previous studies from our laboratory, and the previous literature suggest that impairment of the same brain networks involved in arousal, threat response, and reward processing are associated with apathy in AD and FTD.
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It is currently unknown why people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) receive less pain medication and report pain less frequently. ⋯ While AD had little effect on unpleasantness, people with AD had increased thermal thresholds, altered RSFC, and no association of psychophysics with RSFC in pain regions. Findings begin to elucidate that in people with AD, altered integration of pain sensation, affect, and descending modulation may, in part, contribute to decreased verbal pain reports and thus decreased analgesic administration.
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Progranulin is a multifunctional growth factor mainly expressed in neurons and microglia. Loss-of-function mutations in the Granulin (GRN) gene are causative of frontotemporal dementia with TAR DNA-binding protein-43 inclusions. ⋯ Plasma progranulin levels were significantly reduced and in silico analysis predicted a premature termination codon. This case expands our knowledge on GRN mutations in frontotemporal dementia.
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Gait speed (GS) and psychomotor speed (PS) could be considered as two different dimensions of age-related slowness and both measures are associated with higher risk of adverse health-related outcomes among elderly people. ⋯ In older French people aged 65+, our findings showed that both low GS and PS were independently associated with risk of incident Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.
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Digital Clock Drawing Test (dCDT) technology enables the examination of detailed neurocognitive behavior as behavior unfolds in real time; a capability that cannot be obtained using a traditional pen and paper testing format. ⋯ Longer age-related decision making latencies may reflect a greater need for working memory and increased self-monitoring in older subjects. These latency measures have potential to serve as neurocognitive biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease and other insidious neurodegenerative disorders.