Laura E. Downey

TL;DR: A distributed signature of white matter alterations that is likely to be core to the pathophysiology of bvFTD is demonstrated and it is suggested that this signature is modulated by underlying molecular pathologies.

TL;DR: Tract alterations were more extensive than gray matter alterations, and the extent of alteration across tracts and PPA syndromes varied between diffusivity metrics, illustrating the selective vulnerability of brain language networks in these diseases.

TL;DR: Using a semi-structured caregiver questionnaire and MRI voxel-based morphometry in patients with frontotemporal degeneration or Alzheimer’s disease, Fletcher et al. show that symptoms are underpinned by atrophy in a distributed thalamo-temporo-insular network implicated in somatosensory processing.

TL;DR: Overall the bvFTD group had less severe language deficits than patients with PPA, but showed a language profile that was qualitatively similar to svPPA, which warrants further evaluation as a novel biomarker.

TL;DR: In this article, trajectories of WM change using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were reported in a cohort with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), and sample size estimates using FA change were substantially lower than neuropsychological or whole brain measures of change.