One of Brain Support Network’s missions is to assist families around the United States with brain donation. We have helped over 100 families donate a loved one’s brain. Half of the confirmed diagnoses are different from the clinical diagnoses! We often see one diagnosis “wrong” more often than others – corticobasal degeneration. Often, those with supposed CBD have an atypical form of Alzheimer’s confirmed through brain donation. And we sometimes see the same pattern in frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
Recently, the Mayo Clinic published research on the various types of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Two atypical forms of AD were specifically highlighted — hippocampal sparing (HpSp) and limbic-predominant (LP). We’ve seen this HpSp type on several neuropathology reports for people who were thought to have CBD and a few for FTD.
Here’s a link to the Mayo research:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175379/
Neuropathologically defined subtypes of Alzheimer’s disease with distinct clinical characteristics: A retrospective study
by Melissa E. Murray, PhD, Neill R. Graff-Radford, MBBCh, FRCP (London), Owen A. Ross, PhD, Ronald C. Petersen, MD, Ranjan Duara, MD, and Dennis W. Dickson, MD
Lancet Neurol. 2011 Sep; 10(9): 785–796.
Published online 2011 Jul 27.
Well worth reading…
Robin