View clinical trials related to Frontotemporal Dementia.
Filter by:ARTFL LEFFTDS Longitudinal Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (ALLFTD) represents the formalized integration of ARTFL (U54 NS092089; funded through 2019) and LEFFTDS (U01 AG045390; funded through 2019) as a single North American research consortium to study FTLD for 2019 and beyond.
Background and objects Amyloid plaques and tau protein are the landmarks of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease (AD). On the other hand, it is reported that cerebral ischemia may induce amyloid plaques and tau protein accumulation. However, it was difficult to in vivo disentangle the complex and dynamic interactions between AD pathophysiology and cerebral vascular injury during the post-stroke cognitive impairment development in the past. With the advent of novel radiotracers specific to cerebral amyloid plaques and tau protein, we aim to conduct a prospective multimodal neuroimaging cohort study to investigate the contribution of vascular injury, amyloid plaque and tau protein to cognitive impairment. Subjects and methods The prospective project plans to recruit patients with vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) (Group A, n=80), Alzheimer's disease/mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (Group B, n = 120), fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) (Group C, n =30), and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) (Group E, n = 80). In addition, another 30 healthy people will be recruited as the control group (Group D, n=30). [18F]AV45 and [18F]MNI-958(PMPBB3) PET will be done for imaging cerebral amyloid plaque and tau protein distribution, brain MRI for obtaining structural and functional information, and neuropsychological tests for cognitive performance. Cognitive evaluation will be repeated 18 months after recruitment. In addition, APOE genotyping will be performed as well. By obtaining the neuroimaging information, such as severity of white matter change and infarction, cortical and hippocampal atrophy, and SUVRs of [18F]AV-45 and [18F]MNI-958(PMPBB3) PET, the study will be able to investigate the composite influence of cerebrovascular disease and neurodegenerative pathology on the trajectory of cognitive impairment. Group comparisons will be performed using the Chi-square test, independent t test, Mann-Whitney U test, ANOVA test, and multiple linear regression, where appropriate. Anticipation In this project, we will be able to explore the distribution patterns of amyloid plaque and tau protein among dementia patients with different etiologies, and also evaluate their influence on cognition
The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) - a form of non-invasive brain stimulation - to improve language functioning in individuals who have the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (PPA-L) - a slowly progressive impairment of language, characterized by difficulties with word-finding, sentence repetition and sentence comprehension.
Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a progressive syndrome in the family of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders involving devastating language impairments caused by selective neurodegeneration of the brain's language network. Unfortunately, there is no treatment for PPA. An exciting possibility for treatment is non-invasive repetitive transcranial brain stimulation (rTMS), which induces electric currents in degenerating brain networks, making them in some cases more efficient. Therapeutic benefits from rTMS have been demonstrated when it is applied in many sequential sessions. For example, repeated sessions of rTMS to left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is approved by the US Food and Drug administration as a treatment for major depressive disorder. With respect to language, high frequency rTMS increases the response rate for picture naming in healthy individuals and in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Further, in a sham controlled study, Cotelli and colleagues demonstrated that in a group of 10 non-fluent PPA patients, high frequency rTMS over the left and right dlPFC improved the percent of correct responses for action naming. When rTMS was applied for five consecutive days in a sham controlled single case study, Finocchiaro and colleagues showed lasting improvements in language (up to 1 week) in a patient with non-fluent PPA. Trebbastoni and colleagues further showed the same lasting improvements in language (up to 1 week) in a patient with logopenic PPA. Recently, in a sham controlled single case study, Bereau and colleagues applied a more intense rTMS protocol for ten consecutive days and demonstrated significant linguistic improvements in a logopenic PPA patient that lasted for 1 month. These studies have contributed valuable insights into the potential use of rTMS in treating the language symptoms of PPA patients.
The Boston Cognitive Assessment (BoCA) is a self-administered online test intended for longitudinal cognitive monitoring. BoCA uses random not-repeating tasks to minimize learning effects. BoCA was developed to evaluate the effects of treatment in longitudinal clinical trials and available gratis to individuals and professionals.
This is a double-blind, sham-controlled, crossover study in which subjects with the non-fluent/agrammatic and logopenic variants of primary progressive aphasia (naPPA and lvPPA, respectively) will undergo language testing and structural and functional brain imaging before and after receiving 10 semi-consecutive daily sessions of real or sham high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) paired with modified constraint-induced language therapy (mCILT). Language testing and brain imaging will be repeated immediately after completion of and 3 months following completion of treatment. The 3-month follow-up will be the primary endpoint. The investigators will examine changes in language performance induced by HD-tDCS + mCILT compared to sham HD-tDCS + mCILT. The investigators will also use network science to analyze brain imaging (fMRI) data to identify network properties associated with baseline PPA severity and tDCS-induced changes in performance. This study will combine knowledge gained from our behavioral, imaging, and network data in order to determine the relative degrees to which these properties predict whether persons with PPA will respond to intervention.
AD afflicts over 5.5. million Americans and is one of the most expensive diseases worldwide. In AD the variant in which language functions are most affected are referred to as 'logopenic variant Primary Progressive Aphasia' (lvPPA). Language deficits dramatically impair communication and quality of life for both patients and caregivers. PPA usually has an early onset (50-65 years of age), detrimentally affecting work and family life. Studies have identified verbal short-term memory/working memory (vSTM/WM) as a primary deficit and cause of language impairment. In the first cycle of this award, the investigators asked the question of whether language therapy effects could be augmented by electrical stimulation. The investigators conducted the largest to-date randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled, crossover, clinical trial to determine the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in PPA. The investigators found that tDCS over the left inferior frontal gyrus (L_IFG), one of the major language hubs in the brain, significantly enhanced the effects of a written naming and spelling intervention. In addition, findings demonstrated that tDCS modulates functional connectivity between the stimulated area and other networks (e.g. functionally and structurally connected areas), and that tDCS modulates the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). In terms of tDCS, the investigators have been identified several predictors to determine the beneficience of tDCS including (a) PPA variant, (b) initial performance on cognitive/language tasks, particularly vSTM/WM, and (c) initial white-matter integrity and structure. These findings support the notion that tDCS benefits generalize beyond the treatment tasks and has led to the important question of the present study: How can we implement treatments to product benefits that maximally generalize to untrained but vital language/cognitive functions. To address the above question, the investigators will test recent neuroplasticity theories that claim that the benefits of neuromodulation to language-specific areas generalize to other language functions within the language network, while neuromodulation of a domain-general/multiple-demands area generalizes to both domain-general, executive and language functions. The two areas to be stimulated will be the supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) respectively. The left supramarginal gyrus (L_SMG) in particular, specializes in phonological processing, namely phonological verbal short-term memory (vSTM), i.e., the ability to temporarily store phonological (and graphemic) information in order. The domain of vSTM affects many language tasks (repetition, naming, syntax), which makes it an ideal treatment target and the L_SMG an ideal stimulation target, since generalization of tDCS effects to other language tasks is driven by the function (computation) of the stimulated area. By testing a fundamental principle of neuromodulation in a devastating neurodegenerative disorder, the investigators will significantly advance the field of neurorehabilitation in early-onset dementias. Aim 1: To determine whether vSTM/WM behavioral therapy combined with high definition (HD)-tDCS over the L_SMG will induce more generalization to language-specific tasks than to executive tasks, whereas stimulation over the LDPFC will induce equivalent generalization to both executive and language-specific tasks. Aim 2: To understand the mechanism of tDCS by measuring tDCS-induced changes in network functional connectivity (FC) and GABA in the LSMG and LDPFC. The investigators will carry out resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI), (MPRAGE), diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), perfusion imaging (pCASL), and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), before, after, and 3-months post-intervention. Aim 3: To identify the neural, cognitive, physiological, clinical and demographic characteristics (biomarkers) that predict sham, tDCS, and tDCS vs. sham effects on vSTM and related language tasks in PPA. The investigators will evaluate neural (functional and structural connectivity, cortical volume, neuropeptides, and perfusion), cognitive (memory, attention, executive) and language functions, clinical (severity), physiological (sleep), and demographic (age, gender) characteristics, and the investigators will analyze the effects on vSTM and other language/cognitive outcomes immediately after intervention and at 3 months post-intervention.
The purpose of the Clinical Procedures To Support Research (CAPTURE) study is to utilize information collected in the medical record to learn more about a disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and related disorders.
Within the spectrum of fronto-temporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) semantic dementia (SD) causes profound language dysfunction. SD damages semantic processing typically in the temporal poles (anterior temporal lobes, ATL). It is an early onset disease (often before 65 years of age) affecting about 4000 patients in France and for which no validated treatment is available. For several years a growing number of studies have explored the effects of transcranial stimulation (TCS) on aphasic patients following stroke. Several studies have targeted left-sided language areas and/or homotopical right-sided regions with excitatory or inhibitory TCS, respectively, according to the principle of inter-hemispheric inhibition. In addition, repetitive multi-day TCS has provided evidence for long-lasting language effects (>6 months) presumably linked to stimulation-induced neuroplasticity. Such investigations have provided promising results and have demonstrated that the stimulation site is a determining factor by showing that stimulation of cortical areas belonging to the language network usually results in more convincing effects than stimulating areas outside that network. Despite these findings the use of TCS in degenerative language diseases, such as primary progressive aphasias including SD, has only been explored in few small cohort studies and, surprisingly, they have not targeted language-related cortices. This project proposes the application of multi-day repetitive TCS with direct current (tDCS) in a large population of SD patients (N=60). It is built on a exploratory investigation of our team which has used three single tDCS sessions in a double-blind sham-controlled study. Excitatory and inhibitory tDCS to the left and right temporal pole, respectively, demonstrated highly significant transient effects (20 min) on semantic processing in 12 SD patients, providing 'proof of concept' and the rationale for this project. The aim here consists of using repetitive multi-day tDCS for a potential therapeutic outcome leading to long-lasting semantic improvement via neuroplasticity. The project is grounded on 2 hypotheses: i) tDCS to temporal poles (left-excitatory, right-inhibitory) reactivates semantic processing in SD, ii) repetitive tDCS during ten days could induce neuroplasticity and therapeutic language improvement.
Niemann-Pick disease, type C (NPC) is a lethal, autosomal recessive, lysosomal storage disorder characterized by neurodegeneration in early childhood and death in adolescence. NPC results from mutation of either the Niemann-Pick C1 disease (NPC1) (~95% of cases) or NPC2 genes. NPC is characterized by the endolysosomal storage of unesterified cholesterol and lipids in both the central nervous system and peripheral tissues such as the liver. Individuals with NPC demonstrate progressive central nervous system decline including inability to coordinate balance, gait, extremity and eye movements. Acute liver disease in the newborn/infant period is frequently observed, but subsequently resolves. However, chronic, sub-clinical liver disease persists. Intrathecal 2-Hydroxypropyl-β-Cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD, VTS-270), also known as adrabetadex, has proven effective in reducing the signs and prolonging life in animal models and Phase 1/2a data support efficacy in NPC1 patients. Adrabetadex (VTS-270) also has been shown to be effective in treating liver disease in the NPC1 cat. This Phase 1/2a, open-label, multiple ascending dose trial will evaluate whether adrabetadex (VTS-270) administered intravenously is effective in treating acute liver disease in NPC1 infants.