SELECTIVE CORTICAL AND HIPPOCAMPAL VOLUME CORRELATES OF MATTIS DEMENTIA RATING-SCALE IN ALZHEIMER-DISEASE

Objective: To examine whether each of the 5 Mattis Dementia Rating Sca le (DRS) scores related to magnetic resonance imaging-derived volumes of specific cortical or limbic brain regions in patients with Alzheime r disease (AD). Design: Relations between DRS measures and regional br ain volume measures were tested with bivariate and multivariate regres sion analyses. Setting: The Aging Clinical Research Center of the Stan ford (Calif) University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Scienc e and the Geriatric Psychiatry Rehabilitation Unit of the Veterans Aff airs Pale Alto Health Care System, Pale Alto, Calif. Patients and Othe r Participants: Fifty patients with possible or probable AD. Magnetic resonance imaging data from 136 healthy control participants, age 20 t o 84 years, were used to correct brain volumes for normal variation ar ising from intracranial volume and age. Main Outcome Measures: The DRS scores and volumes of regional cortical gray matter and of the hippoc ampus. Results: Memory scores of the patients with AD were selectively related to hippocampal volumes. Attention and construction scores wer e related to several anterior brain volume measures, with attention sh owing a significantly greater association to right than left hemispher e measures. Initiation/perseveration scores were not significantly cor related with any measure of regional gray matter volume, but performan ce was related to prefrontal sulcal widening, with a greater associati on with the left than right sulcal volume. Conclusions: Certain DRS su btests are predictably correlated with selective regional brain volume s in AD. The specific relation between memory and hippocampal volumes and the nonsignificant relations between memory and regional cortical volumes suggest a dissociation between cortical and hippocampal contri butions to explicit memory performance.