Biomarkers for alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration: Imaging

Abstract

Neuroimaging has become an invaluable tool for the clinical management of patients with cognitive decline and for research purposes. In clinical setting, structural and functional information on the brain tissue damage contributes to define the diagnosis of the major forms of dementia since their early clinical stages. From the research side, quantitative neuroimaging techniques have contributed in clarifying some critical pathophysiological aspects of dementias, playing the unique role of linking together measures of cognitive and behavioural impairment and the presence and distribution of brain tissue abnormalities. Positron emission tomography provides not only information on abnormal brain metabolism, but also on the brain deposition of pathogenic molecules, such as beta-amyloid and tau. On the other hand, quantitative MRI provides information on microstructural brain abnormalities as well as on functional and structural connectivity. In this chapter we review the role of these neuroimaging techniques with a special focus on Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia.