Crossing borders: comparative neuropsychology of Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and Bipolar Disorder

TERESA TORRALVA; MARÍA ROCA; MARÍA ÁNGELES POSE; MARCELO CETKOVICH; FACUNDO MANES

Honolulu

Encuentro; 63rd AAN 2011 Annual Meeting; 2011

American Academy of Neurology

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to compare the neuropsychological profile of Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and elderly patients with Bipolar Disorder (BD) in order to understand the way in which comprehensive cognitive assessment can contribute to their discrimination as distinct clinical entities as well as their differential diagnosis. BACKGROUND: bvFTD is a disorder associated with the progressive degeneration of the frontal and anterior temporal cortices, and its clinical manifestations are a direct reflection of these pathological changes. The initial clinical presentation of the bvFTD is most frequently the presence of psychiatric symptoms such as changes in personality or behavioral disorders mimicking those found in affective disorders such as BD. Previous research has characterized these two disorders independently, but comparisons of these pathologies have been carried out from a neuropsychological perspective.DESIGN/METHODS: 18 bvFTD patients, 15 BD patients, and 14 controls were assessed with a complete cognitive battery. In addition, all patients were assessed with mood scales. RESULTS: Groups did not differ significantly on age, years of education, or gender distribution. Mood scores and performance on tests of cognitive screening were comparable between the clinical groups. While memory acquisition did not differ significantly between bvFTD and BD patients, the latter showed significantly better performance on both the delayed recall (p < .05, for both tests) and the recognition phase (p = 0.01 for logical memory and p < .05 for RAVLT). Remarkably, no significant differences were found between bvFTD and BD patients on measures of attention or executive functions. The clinical groups showed significantly lower scores than controls on most of the neuropsychological tasks. Significant correlations were found between the recognition scores of the memory tasks and measures of attention and executive function. CONCLUSIONS: Comparing the neuropsychological profile of these disorders can shed light on the involvement of shared neuroanatomical circuits.