RT Journal Article
T1 Design and Verbal Fluency in Alzheimer’s Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia: Clinical and Metabolic Correlates
A1 Delgado Álvarez, Alfonso
A1 Cabrera Martín, María Nieves
A1 Pytel, Vanesa
A1 Delgado-Alonso, Cristina
A1 Matías-Guiu Guía, Jorge
A1 Matias-Guiu, Jordi A.
AB Cognitive processes underlying verbal and design fluency, and their neural correlates in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and behavioural variant Frontotemporal Dementia (bvFTD) remain unclear. We hypothesised that verbal and design fluency may be associated with distinct neuropsychological processes in AD and FTD, showing different patterns of impairment and neural basis. Methods: We enrolled 142 participants including patients with AD (n = 80, mean age = 74.71), bvFTD (n = 34, mean age = 68.18), and healthy controls (HCs) (n = 28, mean age = 71.14), that underwent cognitive assessment and F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography imaging. Results: Semantic and phonemic fluency showed the largest effect sizes between groups, showing lower scores in bvFTD than AD and HCs, and lower scores in AD than HC. Both AD and bvFTD showed a lower number of unique designs in design fluency in comparison to HC. Semantic fluency was correlated with left frontotemporal lobe in AD, and with left frontal, caudate, and thalamus in bvFTD. Percentage of unique designs in design fluency was associated with the metabolism of the bilateral fronto-temporo-parietal cortex in AD, and the bilateral frontal cortex with right predominance in bvFTD. Repetitions in AD were correlated with bilateral frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes, and with left prefrontal cortex in bvFTD. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate differential underlying cognitive processes in verbal and design fluency in AD and bvFTD. While memory and executive functioning associated with fronto-temporo-parietal regions were key in AD, attention and executive functions correlated with the frontal cortex and played a more significant role in bvFTD during fluency tasks.
PB Cambridge University Press
SN 1355-6177
SN 1469-7661
YR 2021
FD 2021-09-27
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/104141
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/104141
LA eng
NO Delgado-Álvarez, A., Cabrera-Martín, M. N., Pytel, V., Delgado-Alonso, C., Matías-Guiu, J., & Matias-Guiu, J. A. (2022). Design and Verbal Fluency in Alzheimer’s Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia: Clinical and Metabolic Correlates. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 28(9), 947–962. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355617721001144
NO Instituto de Salud Carlos III
NO European Commision
DS Docta Complutense
RD 6 abr 2025