Cognitive, Neuroimaging, and Pathological Studies of Pick's Disease

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-1998

Abstract

We conducted cognitive, imaging, and neuropathological studies on a patient with Pick's disease. The patient was impaired at interpreting sentences with complex grammatical constructions, differing significantly from control subjects and patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Evaluation of regional brain functioning at rest, with positron emission tomography, revealed reduced left frontal activity compared with control subjects and AD patients. Autopsy demonstrated the classic pathology of Pick's disease, including massive neuron loss and gliosis in the frontal and cingulate cortex as well as numerous tau-positive hippocampal Pick bodies. The abnormal tau proteins were phosphorylated at the same amino acid residues as AD paired helical filament tau (PHFtau), but they exhibited a unique migration profile on western blot. Our observations support the hypothesis that a distinct variety of hyperphosphorylated tau in Pick's disease compromises the long-term viability of selectively vulnerable populations of neurons in frontal cortices that contribute to sentence processing.

Publication Title

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Volume

43

Issue

2

First Page

259

Last Page

265

PubMed ID

9485069

Comments

The published version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ana.410430218

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