ABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to investigate the role of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) and inflammatory factors in the development of cognitive dysfunctions in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). We correlated peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) production of BDNF, Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), Interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10 with performances on specific neuropsychological tasks in a selected series of MS patients. We studied a sample of 30 patients with relapsing-remitting (RR)MS, segregated by gender and matched for age, education, disease duration, type of immunomodulating therapy, degree of disability and overall cognitive status. We found that low BDNF levels were correlated with increased time of execution on a divided attention and visual scanning task whereas high levels of IL-6 were correlated with low Mini Mental State Examination scores. We did not observe any significant correlations between IL-10, TNF-alpha levels and cognitive performances in our patients. In conclusion our study shows a correlation between low BDNF and high IL-6 production by PBMCs and poorer performances in cognitive tasks in RRMS patients suggesting a possible role of these factors in cognitive impairment in MS.
Subject(s)
Cognition Disorders/metabolism , Cytokines/metabolism , Leukocytes, Mononuclear/metabolism , Multiple Sclerosis, Relapsing-Remitting/metabolism , Nerve Growth Factors/metabolism , Adult , Biomarkers/analysis , Biomarkers/metabolism , Brain/immunology , Brain/metabolism , Brain/pathology , Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor/metabolism , Cognition Disorders/immunology , Cognition Disorders/physiopathology , Cohort Studies , Encephalitis/immunology , Encephalitis/metabolism , Encephalitis/physiopathology , Female , Humans , Interleukin-10/metabolism , Interleukin-6/metabolism , Magnetic Resonance Imaging , Male , Middle Aged , Multiple Sclerosis, Relapsing-Remitting/complications , Multiple Sclerosis, Relapsing-Remitting/immunology , Neuropsychological Tests , Statistics as Topic , Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha/metabolismABSTRACT
BACKGROUND/AIMS: Frontal lobe dementia (FLD) and primary nonfluent progressive aphasia (PnPA) are two forms of frontotemporal lobe degeneration. The relationship between these conditions remains unclear. Our study aimed to better define the behavioral and cognitive clusters characterizing PnPA patients. METHODS: We cognitively and behaviorally evaluated three groups of newly diagnosed patients affected by Alzheimer's disease (AD, n=20), FLD (n=22) and PnPA (n=10), in order to assess the cognitive-behavioral pattern of PnPA, compared to both FLD and AD. RESULTS: We found, as expected, worse performances in episodic memory in AD, of both the verbal fluency and naming tasks in PnPA, while FLD mainly showed behavioral disorders associated with an unremarkable deficit in the executive tasks. PnPA was not characterized by any significant behavioral disorders. Factor analysis-extracted three main factors ('mnesic', 'behavioral' and 'linguistic') clearly correlated to each group. A discriminant analysis based on the extracted factors correctly classified 84.6% of all patients. CONCLUSION: The evidence of a characteristics cognitive profile, without any significant behavioral changes, highlights that PnPA is different from other forms of frontotemporal lobe degeneration regarding both the cognitive and behavioral patterns; thus, it should be considered independently in further studies.
