Frontotemporal dementia: the post-tau era.

As scientists have begun to decipher the molecular genetic bases of hereditary frontotemporal dementia (FTD), it has become clear that the biology of these human neurodegenerative diseases has a complexity not previously suspected. FTD has been found to be linked to several chromosomal loci including those in chromosome 9, chromosome 17, and chromosome 3. The article by Guyant-Marechal et al. in this issue of Neurology reports the clinical, pathologic, and molecular characteristics of a form of FTD associated with inclusion body myopathy and Paget disease of the bone observed in members of two families and expands our knowledge on genetically determined FTD.1 The disorder is associated with…

P3–200: Relationship between neurofibrillary pathology and Aβ deposition in Alzheimer disease

Rare coding variants in PLCG2, ABI3, and TREM2 implicate microglial-mediated innate immunity in Alzheimer's disease

International audience; We identified rare coding variants associated with Alzheimer's disease in a three-stage case-control study of 85,133 subjects. In stage 1, we genotyped 34,174 samples using a whole-exome microarray. In stage 2, we tested associated variants (P < 1 × 10-4) in 35,962 independent samples using de novo genotyping and imputed genotypes. In stage 3, we used an additional 14,997 samples to test the most significant stage 2 associations (P < 5 × 10-8) using imputed genotypes. We observed three new genome-wide significant nonsynonymous variants associated with Alzheimer's disease: a protective variant in PLCG2 (rs72824905: p.Pro522Arg, P = 5.38 × 10-10, odds ratio (OR) = 0.68…

Neocortical Variation of Abeta Load in Fully Expressed, Pure Alzheimer's Disease

The relationship between amyloid-beta (A beta) deposition and tau-related neurofibrillary changes is a key issue in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The aim of this study was to investigate the extent and cortical distribution of A beta and tau pathology, their mutual links and their correlation with the duration of the disease in thirty-nine patients with fully expressed AD. By tau immunohistochemistry, we identified different patterns of distribution of neurofibrillary changes that were ascribed to Braak stage V and VI. The disease duration was longer in patients at Braak stage VI than in those at V. Morphometric analysis carried out in several neocortical areas demonstrated …