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Brain Advance Access originally published online on June 24, 2007
Brain 2007 130(8):2055-2069; doi:10.1093/brain/awm133
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© 2007 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Aß amyloid deposition in the language system and how the brain responds

Natalie Nelissen1, Mathieu Vandenbulcke1,2, Katrien Fannes1, Alfons Verbruggen3, Ronald Peeters4, Patrick Dupont5, Koen Van Laere5, Guy Bormans3 and Rik Vandenberghe1,6

1Cognitive Neurology Laboratory, KU Leuven, 2Psychiatry Department, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, 3Radiopharmacy Laboratory, KU Leuven, 4Radiology Department, 5Nuclear Medicine Department and 6Neurology Department, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium

Correspondence to: Rik Vandenberghe, Neurology Department, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, Herestraat 49, 3000 Leuven, Belgium E-mail: rik.vandenberghe{at}uz.kuleuven.ac.be

Post-mortem measures of Aß amyloid deposition correlate only weakly with cognitive dysfunction antemortem. We tested the hypothesis that functional reorganization forms a critical intermediary step between Aß amyloid-associated brain injury and clinical disease expression. Fifteen patients with early-stage probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 16 cognitively intact controls participated in this combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) study. The fMRI design had two factors: task (associative-semantic versus visuoperceptual judgement) and input-modality (written words versus pictures). We measured Aß amyloid by means of Pittsburgh Compound B (11C-PIB). In the posterior third of the left superior temporal sulcus (STS), the fMRI response during the associative-semantic compared with the visuoperceptual task was lower in AD than in controls, in particular for words. Response amplitude correlated inversely with PIB uptake in this region. Contralaterally, the functional pattern differed substantially: the fMRI response in the right posterior STS during the associative-semantic versus the visuoperceptual task was higher in AD than in controls. Accuracy on the Boston Naming test correlated positively with the degree to which AD patients were able to recruit the right STS (r = 0.84, Pcorrected = 0.014). PIB uptake did not correlate with naming accuracy. Functional reorganization of the language system in response to Aß amyloid-related brain injury exists in early-stage AD and determines the degree of anomia more than Aß amyloid load per se does.

Key Words: PIB; fMRI; Alzheimer; STS

Abbreviations: MCI, mild cognitive impairment; STS, superior temporal sulcus

Received February 16, 2007. Revised May 7, 2007. Accepted May 16, 2007.


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