Search results for "Lewy Bodies"
showing 10 items of 21 documents
Neurodegeneration in tauopathies and synucleinopathies.
2016
International audience; While increasing life expectancy is a major achievement, the global aging of societies raises a number of medical issues, such as the development of age-related disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases. The three main disease groups constituting the majority of neurodegenerative diseases are tauopathies, alpha-synucleinopathies and diseases due to repetitions of glutamine (including Huntington's disease). In each neurodegenerative disease, the accumulation of one or more aggregated proteins has been identified as the molecular signature of the disease (as seen, for example, in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, amyotrophic lat…
The predictive power of transcranial sonography in movement disorders: a longitudinal cohort study.
2018
Transcranial sonography (TCS) is a noninvasive, easily performed, and commonly available neuroimaging technique useful for the study of brain parenchyma in movement disorders. This tool has been increasingly used in the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and atypical parkinsonism. The aim of the study was to evaluate the applicability of this technique as supportive tool in the early diagnosis of movement disorders. We performed TCS on 315 individuals which were diagnosed as healthy controls or affected by idiopathic Parkinson’s disease, monogenetic subtypes of Parkinson’s disease, atypical parkinsonism, and Dementia with Lewy bodies. Five TCS diagnostic patterns were defined on the basis of …
The Pharmacology of Visual Hallucinations in Synucleinopathies
2019
Visual hallucinations (VH) are commonly found in the course of synucleinopathies like Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. The incidence of VH in these conditions is so high that the absence of VH in the course of the disease should raise questions about the diagnosis. VH may take the form of early and simple phenomena or appear with late and complex presentations that include hallucinatory production and delusions. VH are an unmet treatment need. The review analyzes the past and recent hypotheses that are related to the underlying mechanisms of VH and then discusses their pharmacological modulation. Recent models for VH have been centered on the role played by the decoupling …
Modulating disease-relevant tau oligomeric strains by small molecules
2020
The pathological aggregation of tau plays an important role in Alzheimer's disease and many other related neurodegenerative diseases, collectively referred to as tauopathies. Recent evidence has demonstrated that tau oligomers, small and soluble prefibrillar aggregates, are highly toxic due to their strong ability to seed tau misfolding and propagate the pathology seen across different neurodegenerative diseases. We previously showed that novel curcumin derivatives affect preformed tau oligomer aggregation pathways by promoting the formation of more aggregated and nontoxic tau aggregates. To further investigate their therapeutic potential, we have extended our studies o disease-relevant bra…
The Impact of COVID-19 Quarantine on Patients With Dementia and Family Caregivers: A Nation-Wide Survey
2021
IntroductionPrevious studies showed that quarantine for pandemic diseases is associated with several psychological and medical effects. The consequences of quarantine for COVID-19 pandemic in patients with dementia are unknown. We investigated the clinical changes in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and evaluated caregivers’ distress during COVID-19 quarantine.MethodsThe study involved 87 Italian Dementia Centers. Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB), Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), and Vascular Dementia (VD) were eligible for the study. Family caregivers of patients with dementia were interviewed by phone in April 2020, 45 days after …
Protein/lipid coaggregates are formed during α-synuclein-induced disruption of lipid bilayers.
2014
Amyloid formation is associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD). Significant α-synuclein (αSN) deposition in lipid-rich Lewy bodies is a hallmark of PD. Nonetheless, an unraveling of the connection between neurodegeneration and amyloid fibrils, including the molecular mechanisms behind potential amyloid-mediated toxic effects, is still missing. Interaction between amyloid aggregates and the lipid cell membrane is expected to play a key role in the disease progress. Here, we present experimental data based on hybrid analysis of two-photon-microscopy, solution small-angle X-ray scattering and circular dichroism data. Data show in real time changes in liposome …
Accuracy of the clinical diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) among the Italian Dementia Centers: a study by the Italian DLB study group (DLB…
2022
Introduction: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) may represent a diagnostic challenge, since its clinical picture overlaps with other dementia. Two toolkits have been developed to aid the clinician to diagnose DLB: the Lewy Body Composite Risk Score (LBCRS) and the Assessment Toolkit for DLB (AT-DLB). We aim to evaluate the reliability of these two questionnaires, and their ability to enhance the interpretation of the international consensus diagnostic criteria. Methods: LBCRS and AT-DLB were distributed to 135 Italian Neurological Centers for Cognitive Decline and Dementia (CDCDs), with the indication to administer them to all patients with dementia referred within the subsequent 3 months. We…
DCTN1 mutation analysis in Italian patients with PSP, MSA, and DLB
2020
Abstract DCTN1 encodes the largest subunit of dynactin complex essential in the retrograde axonal transport and cytoplasmic transport of vesicles; mutations in DCTN1 have been reported predominantly in individuals with Perry syndrome and, recently, in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy. Our genetic screening of DCTN1 in 79 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy, 100 patients with multiple system atrophy, and 28 patients with dementia with Lewy bodies from Italy revealed only synonymous and intronic variants, suggesting that DCTN1 mutations do not have a key role in the development of atypical parkinsonism in the Italian population.
Survival time and differences between dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer’s disease following diagnosis: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies.
2019
Objective: To synthesize the evidence across longitudinal studies comparing survival in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies comparing survival in clinically diagnosed DLB to AD. Longitudinal cohort studies were identified through a systematic search of major electronic databases from inception to May 2018. A random effects meta-analysis was performed to calculate survival time and relative risk of death. Results: Overall, 11 studies were identified including 22,952 patients with dementia: 2029 with DLB (mean diagnosis age 76.3; 47% female) compared with 20,923 with AD (mean diagnosis age 77.2; 6…
Neuropsychiatric symptoms in 921 elderly subjects with dementia: a comparison between vascular and neurodegenerative types.
2008
Objective: i) to describe the neuropsychiatric profile of elderly subjects with dementia by comparing vascular (VaD) and degenerative dementias, i.e. dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD); ii) to assess whether the severity and type of dementia are associated with clinically relevant neuropsychiatric symptoms (CR-NPS). Method: One hundred and thirty-one out-patients with VaD, 100 with DLB and 690 with AD were studied. NPS were evaluated by the neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI). Results: Vascular dementia had lower total and domain-specific NPI scores and a lower frequency of CR-NPS than AD and DLB, for which frequency of CR-NPS increased significantly with disease s…