FUNCTIONAL IMAGING, THE FRONTAL LOBES, AND DEMENTIA

A 58-year-old man developed progressive difficulty with comprehension and verbal output with dementia. Positron emission tomography with F-1 8 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose demonstrated asymmetrical frontal and ant erior temporal lobe loss of glucose use. Scopolamine infusion (0.3 mg) did not influence memory. Postmortem studies revealed evidence of Pic k's disease, with Pick bodies, loss of somatostatin, preservation of c holine acetyltransferase and immunostaining with neurofilament antibod ies. Pharmacological challenge and positron imaging offer valuable mea ns for the noninvasive assessment of dementing illness. The contributi ons of functional imaging to our knowledge of frontal involvement in d ementing illness are reviewed.