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Abstract:
Significant neuropathological changes are seen in areas
critical to processing olfactory information, even in the early
stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Psychophysical testing
indicates impaired performance on olfactory tasks in AD. The
current study was designed to investigate whether performance on
olfactory tasks (odor threshold and odor identification) was
related to volumetric measures of areas central to olfactory
information processing, obtained through nuclear magnetic resonance
imaging, in patients with AD. Participants were 12 patients with
probable AD and 23 normal age-matched controls, all diagnosed at
the UCSD Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. The study
investigated correlations between volumetric measures of the
frontal lobe, the caudate and putamen, the mesial temporal lobe as
a whole, the hippocampus, the parahippocampal giri and the amygdala
and the psychophysical measures of olfactory function. Odor
threshold was significantly correlated with frontal lobe volume and
hippocampal volume. The AD patients showed a highly significant
correlation coefficient (.68) between hippocampal grey matter and
odor identification scores. The results suggest the potential
utility of further investigation of quantitative MRI measures and
psychophysical performance in patients with AD. Supported by NIH
Grant # AG04085 We thank Drs. Leon Thal, Robert Katzman and the
UCSD Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.
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