Recent research suggests a central role for inflammatory mechanisms in cognitive decline that may occur prior to evidence of neurodegeneration. Limited information exists, however, regarding the relationship between low-grade inflammation and cognitive function in healthy older adults. This study examined the relation between inflammation, verbal memory consolidation, and medial temporal lobe volumes in a cohort of older community-dwelling subjects. Subjects included 141 functionally intact, community-dwelling older adults with detectable (n=76) and undetectable (n=65) levels of C-reactive protein. A verbal episodic memory measure was administered to all subjects, and measures of delayed recall and recognition memory were assessed. A semiautomated parcellation program was used to analyze structural MRI scans. On the episodic memory task, analysis of covariance revealed a significant CRP group by memory recall interaction, such that participants with detectable levels of CRP evidenced worse performance after a delay compared to those with undetectable levels of CRP. Individuals with detectable CRP also demonstrated lower performance on a measure of recognition memory. Imaging data demonstrated smaller left medial temporal lobe volumes in the detectable CRP group as compared with the undetectable CRP group. These findings underscore a potential role for inflammation in cognitive aging as a modifiable risk factor.

The Advancing Research and Treatment in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration and Longitudinal Evaluation of Familial Frontotemporal Dementia Subjects longitudinal studies were designed to describe the natural history of familial-frontotemporal lobar degeneration due to autosomal dominant mutations.

Intentional facial expression of emotion is critical to healthy social interactions. Patients with neurodegenerative disease, particularly those with right temporal or prefrontal atrophy, show dramatic socioemotional impairment. This was an exploratory study examining the neural and behavioral correlates of intentional facial expression of emotion in neurodegenerative disease patients and healthy controls. One hundred and thirty three participants (45 Alzheimer's disease, 16 behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, 8 non-fluent primary progressive aphasia, 10 progressive supranuclear palsy, 11 right-temporal frontotemporal dementia, 9 semantic variant primary progressive aphasia patients and 34 healthy controls) were video recorded while imitating static images of emotional faces and producing emotional expressions based on verbal command; the accuracy of their expression was rated by blinded raters. Participants also underwent face-to-face socioemotional testing and informants described participants' typical socioemotional behavior. Patients' performance on emotion expression tasks was correlated with gray matter volume using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) across the entire sample. We found that intentional emotional imitation scores were related to fundamental socioemotional deficits; patients with known socioemotional deficits performed worse than controls on intentional emotion imitation; and intentional emotional expression predicted caregiver ratings of empathy and interpersonal warmth. Whole brain VBMs revealed a rightward cortical atrophy pattern homologous to the left lateralized speech production network was associated with intentional emotional imitation deficits. Results point to a possible neural mechanisms underlying complex socioemotional communication deficits in neurodegenerative disease patients.