Different Patterns of Glucose Hypometabolism Underlie Functional Decline in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease: FDG-PET Study

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Objective: Functional decline in daily life is a common difficulty among patients with dementia. Nevertheless, little is known about the neural correlates of functional decline. We hypothesized that functional impairment is associated with metabolic abnormalities in distinct regions in cases of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Methods: After 49 patients with AD, 13 patients with FTD, and 21 normal participants underwent a [18F] fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography scan, we evaluated the relations between functional decline measured using Functional Assessment Staging (FAST) and regional cerebral glucose metabolism from voxel-based analyses. Results: In patients with AD, we found significant negative correlation between FAST scores and [18F] FDG uptake in the parietal cortex, temporal cortex, cingulate cortex and precuneus. By contrast, for patients with FTD, we found significant negative correlation in the frontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and claustrum. Conclusions: This study identified relations between the functional decline and regional brain hypometabolism, respectively, in patients with AD and FTD.