Alviss

Apathy is a debilitating feature of many neuropsychiatric diseases, that is typically described as a reduction of goal-directed behaviour. Despite its prevalence and prognostic importance, the mechanisms underlying apathy remain controversial. Degeneration of the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system is known to contribute to motivational deficits, including apathy. In healthy people, noradrenaline...

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) can synthesize brain images from image or noise input. So far, the gold standard for assessing the quality of the generated images has been human expert ratings. However, due to limitations of human assessment in terms of cost, scalability, and the limited sensitivity of the human eye to more subtle statistical relationships, a more automated approach towards...

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterised by neuro-glial tau pathology. A new staging system for PSP pathology at post-mortem has been described and validated. We used a data-driven approach to test whether post-mortem pathological staging in PSP can be reproduced in vivo with 18F-flortaucipir PET. Method : N = 42 patients with probable PSP and N = 39 cont...

In frontotemporal dementia (FTD), apathy is reported to negatively impact the prognosis and survival of patients. The study of genetic FTD in its pre‐symptomatic period permits the investigation of markers in the early stages of disease progression. Therefore, in pre‐symptomatic gene carriers in the multicentre Genetic FTD Initiative (GENFI), we examined longitudinal apathy changes in association ...

Neuroinflammation is part of the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), in addition to amyloid‐β plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles. PET markers of microglial activation have indicated inflammation of temporo‐parietal regions, in proportion to disease severity. Here we test the prognostic value of [11C]PK11195 PET on longitudinal clinical decline in AD, alone and in combination with MRI...

Background : Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal syndrome (CBS) affect speech and language as well as motor functions. Clinical and neuropathological data indicate a close relationship between these two disorders and the non fluent variant of primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA). We use the recently developed Mini Linguistic State Examination tool (MLSE) to study speech and langu...

The adaption of movement to changes in the environment varies across life span. Recent evidence has linked motor adaptation and its reduction with age to differences in "explicit" learning processes. We examine differences in brain structure and cognition underlying motor adaptation in a population-based cohort (n = 322, aged 18-89 years) using a visuomotor learning task and structural magnetic re...

Apathy adversely affects prognosis and survival of patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). We test whether apathy develops in presymptomatic genetic FTD, and is associated with cognitive decline and brain atrophy. Presymptomatic carriers of MAPT, GRN or C9orf72 mutations (N = 304), and relatives without mutations (N = 296) underwent clinical assessments and MRI at baseline, and annually for 2...

The syndromes caused by frontotemporal lobar degeneration have highly heterogeneous and overlapping clinical features. There has been great progress in the refinement of clinical diagnostic criteria in the past decade, but we propose that a better understanding of aetiology, pathophysiology and symptomatic treatments can arise from a transdiagnostic approach to clinical phenotype and brain morphom...