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Neurodegenerative disease

Cortical atrophy in syndromes of progressive aphasia

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration often presents with distinct language impairments that are associated with different distributions of cortical atrophy. Two studies have now demonstrated that these clinical syndromes are associated with highly characteristic patterns of cortical thinning. Specific cortical atrophy profiles do not, however, seem to reliably predict histologically distinct frontotemporal lobar degeneration variants.

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Figure 1: T2-weighted MRI in a patient with semantic dementia.

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Wise, R. Cortical atrophy in syndromes of progressive aphasia. Nat Rev Neurol 5, 471–473 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2009.133

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