Posterior AD-Type Pathology: Cognitive Subtypes Emerging from a Cluster Analysis
| Autor: | Antonella Cappa, Nicoletta Ciccarelli, Eleonora Baldonero, Marialuisa Martelli, Maria Caterina Silveri |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2014 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Behavioural Neurology, Vol 2014 (2014) |
| Druh dokumentu: | article |
| ISSN: | 0953-4180 1875-8584 |
| DOI: | 10.1155/2014/259358 |
| Popis: | Background. “Posterior shift” of the neuropathological changes of Alzheimer's disease (AD) produces a syndrome (posterior cortical atrophy) (PCA) dominated by high-level visual deficits. Objective. To explore in patients with AD-type pathology whether a data-driven analysis (cluster analysis) based on neuropsychological findings resulted in the emergence of different subgroups of patients; in particular to find out whether it was possible to identify patients with visuospatial deficits consistent with the hypothesis that PCA is a “dorsal stream” syndrome or, rather, whether there were subgroups of patients with different types of impairment within the high-level visual domain. Methods. 23 PCA and 16 DAT patients were studied. By a principal component analysis performed on a wide range of neuropsychological tasks, 15 variables were obtained that loaded onto five main factors (memory, language, perceptual, visuospatial, and calculation) which entered a hierarchical cluster analysis. Results. Four clusters of cognitive impairment emerged: visuospatial/perceptual, memory, perceptual/calculation, and language. Only in the first cluster a visuospatial deficit clearly emerged. Conclusions. AD pathology produces not only variants dominated by memory (DAT) and, to a lesser extent, visuospatial deficit (PCA), but also other distinct syndromic subtypes with disorders in visual perception and language which reflect a different vulnerability of specific functional networks. |
| Databáze: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
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