[Specificities of the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia]. / Particularités du variant logopénique au sein des aphasies progressives primaires.

The logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia is a syndrome with neuropsychological and linguistic specificities, including phonological loop impairment for which diagnosis is currently mainly based on the exclusion of the two other variants, semantic and nonfluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia. The syndrome may be underdiagnosed due (1) to mild language difficulties during the early stages of the disease or (2) to being mistaken for mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease when the evaluation of episodic memory is based on verbal material and (3) finally, it is not uncommon that the disorders are attributed to psychiatric co-morbidities such as, for example, anxiety. Moreover, compared to other variants of primary progressive aphasia, brain abnormalities are different. The left temporoparietal junction is initially affected. Neuropathology and biomarkers (cerebrospinal fluid, molecular amyloid nuclear imaging) frequently reveal Alzheimer's disease. Consequently this variant of primary progressive aphasia does not fall under the traditional concept of frontotemporal lobar degeneration. These distinctive features highlight the utility of correct diagnosis, classification, and use of biomarkers to show the neuropathological processes underlying logopenic primary progressive aphasia. The logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia is a specific form of Alzheimer's disease frequently presenting a rapid decline; specific linguistic therapies are needed. Further investigation of this syndrome is needed to refine screening, improve diagnostic criteria and better understand the epidemiology and the biological mechanisms involved.

Semantic dementia: aspects of the early diagnosis.

Semantic dementia is a lobar atrophy syndrome, related to a degeneration of anterior temporal regions, and characterized by a very predominant impairment of semantic memory. Whereas the diagnosis is relatively easy to establish in the typical form and if the patient is seen early, the emergence of possible additional cognitive or psycho-behavioural disorders can lead to a misdiagnosis in favour of a frontotemporal dementia syndrome or even probable Alzheimer's disease.

[Acquired copper deficiency myelopathy]. / Myélopathie postérieure par carence en cuivre acquise.

INTRODUCTION: The hematological manifestations of acquired copper deficiency are well known. But the neurological manifestations have only been recognised in the past few years. The most common neurological manifestation in adults is a myeloneuropathy with prominent sensory ataxia and spastic gait. Electrophysiological tests reveal an axonal sensorimotor peripheral neuropathy. Spinal MRI shows an augmented T2 signal involving the dorsal column. The causes of acquired copper deficiency include gastric surgery, excessive zinc ingestion, and malabsorption but in most cases, the cause remains unclear. Early recognition and treatment may prevent neurological deterioration but improvement seems to be slight and inconstant. OBSERVATION: We report two new cases of acquired copper deficiency myeloneuropathy associated with a nephrotic syndrome and, in one case, with a major iron overload syndrome. Biological abnormalities disappeared under copper supplementation. A significant neurological improvement with disappearance of ataxia occurred in one patient who received copper supplementation eight months after symptom onset. CONCLUSIONS: Nephrotic syndrome might be another complication of acquired copper deficiency. Delayed treatment is not necessarily associated with a deleterious neurological prognosis. Significant neurological improvement under copper supplementation is possible.

[Semantic dementia: reflexions of a French working group for diagnostic criteria and constitution of a patient cohort]. / Démence sémantique: réflexions d'un groupe de travail pour des critères de diagnostic en français et la constitution d'une cohorte de patients.

Semantic dementia (SD) is a syndrome of progressive loss of semantic knowledge for objects and people. International criteria propose that SD be included in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration syndromes, with progressive non-fluent aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). However, several related syndromes have been defined that clinically and conceptually share both similarities and differences with SD: fluent progressive aphasia, progressive prosopagnosia, temporal variant of FTD. In order to establish a French consensus for the diagnosis and modalities of evaluation and follow-up of SD, a working group, composed of neurologists, neuropsychologists and speech-therapists, was established by the Groupe de réflexion sur les évaluations cognitives (GRECO). New criteria were elaborated, based on clinical, neuropsychological, and imaging data. They define typical and atypical forms of SD. A diagnosis of typical SD relies on an isolated and progressive loss of semantic knowledge, attested by a deficit of word comprehension and a deficit of objects and/or people identification, with imaging showing temporal atrophy and/or hypometabolism. SD is atypical if the deficit of semantic knowledge is present only within a single modality (verbal versus visual), or if non-semantic deficits (mild and not present at onset) and/or neurological signs, are associated with the semantic loss.

Adult-Onset Leukoencephalopathy with Axonal Spheroids and Pigmented Glia: An MRI Study of 16 French Cases.

Adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia is an autosomal dominant leukoencephalopathy related to CSF1R gene mutations. A growing number of clinicoradiologic phenotypes have been described. In this study, we analyzed brain imaging findings in 16 patients with adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia to refine radiologic diagnostic clues. T2/FLAIR white matter hyperintensities were present in all patients with frontal or frontoparietal predilection, with asymmetric distribution in more than one-third. Brain atrophy and callosal involvement were almost constant, and corticospinal tract involvement was frequent. Moreover, deep white matter hyperintense dots on DWI and deep punctate calcifications on CT were often found. Conversely, deep gray matter nuclei, external capsules, and brain stem were rarely involved. Our series emphasized the great variability of MR imaging findings seen in adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia. A complete imaging screening including DWI, T2*, and CT is mandatory to accurately assess patients with suspected inherited adult-onset leukoencephalopathy.

[From psychometry to neuropsychological disability in multiple sclerosis: a new brief French cognitive screening battery and cognitive risk factors]. / De la psychométrie au handicap neuropsychologique dans la sclérose en plaques. Proposition d'une batterie de dépistage en langue française et facteurs de risque cognitifs.

INTRODUCTION: Cognitive deficit in multiple sclerosis (MS) is a frequent early feature in the disease course, which conditions patients' overall disability. The goals of this study were to validate a reproducible brief screening battery written in French and to examine cognitive risk profiles in patients with a mild physical disability. METHODS: Cognitive performances of 40 patients with EDSS <4.5 were compared with those of a control group. The study was completed with an analysis of socio-demographic, clinical and psychological variables (questionnaires). RESULTS: Three tests were discriminative with satisfactory predictive values (positive: 88 percent; negative: 96 percent) and a time duration <30 minutes: PASAT (hard condition), backward digit span, learning stage of California Verbal Learning Test. Four variables were associated with cognitive deficit: educational level <11 years, age >40 years, pathological laughing-crying, unemployment. CONCLUSIONS: Our brief battery is an easy and reproducible tool. Completed with warning signs indicating the need for neuropsychological screening, this tool provides the practitioner with a global means of assessing disease activity and potentially therapeutic efficacy.

Use of haplotype information to test involvement of the LRP gene in Alzheimer's disease in the French population.

The low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein gene (LRP) is a good candidate gene for Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Its protein is involved in the physiopathology of AD and has been found in senile plaques; on the other hand, LRP is located in 12q, a region in which genetic linkage to AD was reported. Two common polymorphisms, a tetranucleotide repeat in the 5' untranslated region and a single nucleotide polymorphism at position 766 in exon 3, were found to be associated with AD, but contradictory results were obtained in subsequent association studies. In the absence of clear hypotheses concerning the association of these polymorphisms with AD and their functional role, our objective was to test the association between AD and the two LRP polymorphisms in a large French case-control sample (274 Caucasian AD patients and 290 matched controls) using haplotype analysis. First, the separate study of each polymorphism showed no significant difference in genotype and allele frequencies between AD cases and controls. Second, strong linkage disequilibrium was found between alleles of the two polymorphisms in controls and in cases and the linkage disequilibrium between the 91 bp and C alleles were opposite in cases and in controls. Third, we found that the frequency of the 91-C haplotype was higher in cases than in controls, but the type I error was 0.061, slightly higher than the conventional one of 5%. The haplotype frequencies did not vary significantly as a function of age and APOE epsilon4 status. One interest in this study is the use of the haplotype analysis, which can be used to combine information from several polymorphisms, taking into account their dependence.

APOE promoter polymorphisms do not confer independent risk for Alzheimer's disease in a French population.

The apolipoprotein E (APOE, gene; apoE, protein) isoforms are associated with differential risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). An additional involvement of APOE promoter polymorphisms in AD risk has recently been suggested by several studies. Indeed, three polymorphisms of the APOE regulatory region (-219 G/T, -427 C/T and -491 A/T) have been found associated with AD even after adjustment on the apoE status. We analysed these three promoter region polymorphisms in a large French case-control study (388 AD cases and 386 controls). We found that the -427 T and -491 A alleles were associated with an increased risk of developing AD, but not the -219 G/T alleles. However, a strong linkage disequilibrium was observed between the alleles of these promoter region polymorphisms and the APOE coding region alleles. We therefore retested association after adjustment on apoE status and found that the sole association which remained significant was the association with the -427 T allele. The alpha level was equal to 0.03 (0.09 after Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons). Analysis of promoter haplotypes also yielded non-significant results. Thus our study does not reinforce the hypothesis of an independent involvement of the APOE promoter region polymorphisms in AD risk.

Drugs used in Alzheimer's disease and neuroplasticity.

Drugs indicated for use in Alzheimer's disease (AD) must clinically improve the cognitive symptomatology of the disorder, although nonexclusively. From a neurochemical standpoint, these drugs must oppose the multiple processes recognized as stigmata of AD. In these two ways, so-called AD drugs may be considered substances modifying cerebral plasticity. Long-term evaluation of anticholinesterases and of tacrine, in particular, provides arguments in support of this initially purely biologic, theoretical approach. This concept of neuroplasticity applied to dementia may modify the traditional pharmaceutical drug development programs.

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors, cognitive functions and neurodegenerative diseases.

Recent data obtained in animals and in humans suggest that both MAO-A and MAO-B inhibitors present cognitive enhancing properties of possible interest in the treatment of cognitive disorders. In addition, the rational for using selegiline as a neuroprotector in Parkinson's disease may also be applicable in Alzheimer's disease in which a dramatic increase in the MAO-B activity has been reported. It seems then worthwhile to investigate the neuroprotective effect of MAOIs in humans and to assess, furthermore, the real therapeutical benefit of their cognitive enhancing properties.

Explicit and procedural memory in Parkinson's disease.

One of the aims of cognitive psychology is to breakdown complex tasks into their most basic components. The components of explicit (declarative) and implicit (procedural) memory were thus analyzed in undemented, non-depressed Parkinsonian patients under anti-Parkinsonian treatment, and compared with young and elderly healthy subjects. Three series of experiments were conducted in 61 patients in total. Statistically significant results revealed an impairment of explicit memory (verbal recall of words and drawings) with preserved recall of faces, in Parkinsonians. Implicit memory was also deficient, only in association tests (sound-form; arithmetical alphabet) and maze tests. Braille reading tests and Toronto tower tests did not discriminate between Parkinsonians and elderly subjects. Lastly, analyzing learning and automation revealed a dysfunctioning in Parkinsonian patients. All these data indicate a dysregulation of the cortical-sub-cortical systems, not essentially pre-frontal, and not necessarily dopaminergic. Cognitively, it appears that procedural and implicit memories should be dissociated conceptually.

[Mild Cognitive Impairment: potential therapeutics]. / Le déclin cognitif modéré ou le mild cognitive impairment (MCI): perspectives thérapeutiques.

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is an emerging concept used to describe memory decline and probably attention disturbances in otherwise intellectually intact individuals. MCI may be considered in 12 to 15 p. 100 of the cases as announcing an Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Although still speculative, the debate concerning the drugs susceptible to normalize symptoms of MCI or to stop conversion to AD must be raised. For that purpose, several long term clinical trials are running (antioxidants, nootropics, anticholinesterasics.) and new molecules in the pipe-line should be assessed in patients with the diagnosis of MCI.

[Neuropsychological and scintigraphic aspects of frontotemporal dementia preceding amyotrophic lateral sclerosis]. / Aspects neuropsychologiques et scintigraphiques des démences fronto-temporales précédant l'atteinte du motoneurone.

Between 1993 and 2001, we observed fifteen patients (ten men and five women, mean age 63 years) with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) which preceded signs of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) which developed 21 months later. Mean disease duration in the fourteen deceased patients was 38 months. FTD associated with ALS is characterized by rapid course, predominance of disinhibited forms (orbito-basal), presence of aphasia with neologisms, and semantic memory disorders. Performed in all patients, single-photon emission computed tomography demonstrated a bifrontal pattern of low uptake, sometimes associated with low uptake in the anterior temporal region. In one patient, neuropathology revealed neuron atrophy and loss in the frontotemporal region, the anterior horns, and the hypoglossal nucleus. Ubiquitin-positive inclusions were visible in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and in the anterior horns. The dementia/ALS association is classically described is uncommon. It belongs to the FTD group since the Lund and Manchester consensus. Approximately 15 p.100 of patient with FTD can be expected to develop ALS. About 250 cases have been reported in the literature, half of them in the Pacific area where the incidence of ALS is high (55/100,000 inhabitants versus 1/100,000 in the rest of the world). Intermediary forms of FTD, semantic dementia, and progressive non-fluent aphasia are discussed since several cases of non-fluent progressive aphasia associated with ALS are reported in the literature. The links between these two degenerative diseases are discussed.

[Calcium antagonists and the central nervous system]. / Les antagonistes calciques et le système nerveux central.

The calcium antagonists (CA) which are at our disposal are a pharmacological class potentially active on the calcium homeostasis at the central nervous system level. Instead of reviewing the whole possibility of therapeutical potential targets, the authors review the 3 main possible and up-to-date impacts of these compounds: cerebral vasoactivity, neurotransmission, cell death. The actual lack of good clinical trials in those fields is stressed as well as the consequent necessity to stimulate the undertaking of such trials in humans in order to avoid to limit the use of CA in the only cardio-vascular spectrum.

[Randomized double-blind comparative study of minaprine (200mg/j) and of placebo on memory loss]. / Etude comparative en double aveugle randomisée de la minaprine (200 mg/j) et du placebo sur la plainte mnésique.

Thirty five subjects (age: 45-69 years) with subjective memory loss, without any other neuropsychiatric or somatic disease, were recruited in a phase II study. This double blind randomized versus placebo controlled study compared the effects of minaprine (200 mg/d) with placebo, in two parallel groups, during 2 months, on memory, attention and vigilance. Three psychometric tests were the main criteria of assessment: a standardized battery of memory tests (SM 5), the dual-coding test, the analysis of choice reaction times (CRT) and the critical flicker fusion point (CFF). A positive effect of minaprine was detected on words delayed recall (p = 0.028) and immediate recognition of words (p = 0.049). The global clinical tests (CGI, MacNair scale) were not statistically modified. Tolerability of minaprine and placebo were comparable. A positive pharmacodynamic activity on mnemonic performance is thus demonstrated in favour of minaprine (200 mg/d) in this specific population characterized by a memory complaint. These results would lead to a phase III study in which the main criteria would be global scales in order to confirm the clinical reliability of the present results.

[Adverse effects and drugs for Alzheimer's disease]. / Effets indésirables et médicaments de la maladie d'Alzheimer.

Molecules currently available or in late phases of development for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease have modest and apparently equivalent efficacies. Thus, the choice will depend on the safety profile of these drugs and on the patient characteristics. The aim of this review is to undertake an inventory of adverse effects and interactions reported in the literature for anticholinesterasics (the only ones approved by authorities). As most of the molecules described in this article are still in early phases of development, data reported here mainly issued from clinical trials carried out on specific populations. Most of these reported adverse effects have not been attributed according to the rules of pharmacovigilance. Nevertheless, we believe that the data presented in this review will be of great interest to clinicians and pharmacovigilance specialists as the compounds concerned become available on the market.

Preclinical evaluation of the abuse potential of Pitolisant, a histamine H3 receptor inverse agonist/antagonist compared with Modafinil.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Pitolisant, a histamine H3 receptor inverse agonist/antagonist is currently under Phase III clinical trials for treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness namely in narcoleptic patients. Its drug abuse potential was investigated using in vivo models in rodents and monkeys and compared with those of Modafinil, a psychostimulant currently used in the same indications. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: Effects of Pitolisant on dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, on spontaneous and cocaine-induced locomotion, locomotor sensitization were monitored. It was also tested in three standard drug abuse tests i.e. conditioned place preference in rats, self-administration in monkeys and cocaine discrimination in mice as well as in a physical dependence model. KEY RESULTS: Pitolisant did not elicit any significant changes in dopaminergic indices in rat nucleus accumbens whereas Modafinil increased dopamine release. In rodents, Pitolisant was without any effect on locomotion and reduced the cocaine-induced hyperlocomotion. In addition, no locomotor sensitization and no conditioned hyperlocomotion were evidenced with this compound in rats whereas significant effects were elicited by Modafinil. Finally, Pitolisant was devoid of any significant effects in the three standard drug abuse tests (including self-administration in monkeys) and in the physical dependence model. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: No potential drug abuse liability for Pitolisant was evidenced in various in vivo rodent and primate models, whereas the same does not seem so clear in the case of Modafinil.

Verb production during action naming in semantic dementia.

UNLABELLED: In contrast with widely documented deficits of semantic knowledge relating to object concepts and the corresponding nouns in semantic dementia (SD), little is known about action semantics and verb production in SD. The degradation of action semantic knowledge was studied in 5 patients with SD compared with 17 matched control participants in an action naming task based on video clips. The pattern of errors, involving a huge proportion of generic verbs (e.g. "to remove" versus "to peel") relative to responses in control subjects, suggested a hierarchical, bottom-up deficit of action knowledge in SD patients. In addition, abnormal responses in patients consisted of verbs that were semantically related to the expected verbs produced by control subjects (e.g. "to undress" versus "to peel" for the action [To peel_orange]). This study suggests that, in SD, non-canonical responses to action naming reflect lack of both specificity and semantic relatedness relative to the expected responses. LEARNING OUTCOMES: As a result of this activity, readers will recognize that semantic word knowledge disappears in semantic dementia using video clips of object-related actions. As a result of this activity, readers will discover that this semantic impairment followed a hierarchical pattern with the more specific verbs vanishing first.

Mild Alzheimer's disease: a "position paper".

Under the auspices of the Societe Francaise de Geriatrie et Gerontologie, a multi-disciplinary group of specialists in geriatrics, neurology, epidemiology, psychiatry, neuroradiology and nuclear medicine met with the aim of drawing up references on the methods for diagnosing and treating mild Alzheimer's disease. The critical analysis of international literature, conducted by Professor Bruno Vellas for the scientific committee, has served to support study of the latest knowledge in 2008. The multi-disciplinary group met on 14 and 15 May 2008 in order to set out the questions that this study must answer and to allocate draft studies. Thus, it has been possible to conduct a study focused on mild Alzheimer's disease, giving particular attention to diagnostic procedure, specific methods of treatment and the benefits of making a diagnosis.