PILOT--QUANTITATIVE MRI ANALYSIS OF PSYCHOSIS IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

精神病是老年痴呆症常见的行为并发症， 尤其是阿尔茨海默病（AD）。 虽然某些边缘系统 结构与认知和情感 慢性特发性精神病的异常，很少有人知道， 晚期精神病的神经病理学和神经放射学相关性 发病，包括与神经退行性疾病相关的疾病。 MRI提供了体内检测所需的解剖分辨率 结构异常，并具有优势， 结果中的数据可能与同期临床 评估。 本研究的目的是使用计算机分析的MR来估计 有和没有AD患者的特定脑结构体积 精神病，试图确定一个可能的解剖学基础， 迟发性精神病 对四组患者进行了分析 (AD有精神病的AD，无精神病的AD，路易体变异，对照）。 我们的假设是患有精神病的AD患者会表现出 在精神病方面有相似的结构异常， 特别是累及豆状、额叶和内侧颞叶 结构. 在路易体变异的AD，其中锥体外系 特征是临床表现的特征， 基底神经节结构将被预期显著更多 突出。 如果患者在研究期间死亡并进行尸检， 神经病理学结果将与定量MR相关 分析.

Psychosis is a common behavioral complication of dementia in the elderly, and of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in particular. Although certain limbic structures have been implicated in the cognitive and emotional abnormalities of chronic idiopathic psychosis, little is known about the neuropathological and neuroradiological correlates of psychoses of later onset, including those associated with neurodegenerative disorders. MRI provides the anatomical resolution necessary for in vivo detection of structural abnormalities and has the advantage over neuropathologic data in that results may be correlated with concurrent clinical assessments. The aim of the present study is to use computer-analyzed MR to estimate volumes of specific cerebral structures in AD patients with and without psychosis in an attempt to identify a possible anatomical substrate of late-onset psychosis. Analysis is proposed on four groups of patients (AD with psychosis, AD without psychosis, Lewy body variant, controls). It is our hypothesis that AD subjects with psychosis will demonstrate similar structural abnormalities with regard to their psychosis, especially involving lenticular, frontal and mesial temporal lobe structures. In the Lewy body variant of AD, where extrapyramidal features are characteristic of the clinical presentation, involvement of basal ganglia structures would be expected to be significantly more prominent. If patients die and have autopsies during the time-frame of the study, neuropathological findings will be correlated with quantitative MR analysis.