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Different variants of frontotemporal dementia: a neuropathological and immunohistochemical study

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Abstract

Histological and immunohistochemical findings in 20 cases of frontotemporal dementias – 8 cases of dementia of frontal lobe type (DFT), 7 cases of Pick’s disease (PD), and 5 cases of motor neuron disease with dementia (MND/D) – are presented. Common features of all three syndromes were: frontotemporal atrophy, involvement of subcortical nuclei, and swollen chromatolytic cells. Ubiquitin (Ub)-positive and tau-negative inclusions in cortical, hippocampal, and motor neurons were found in MND/D and DFT cases, suggesting a common pathogenesis of MND/D and DFT. MND/D showed the same cytoskeletal alterations in motor nuclei as MND without dementia: Bunina bodies and skein-like, Ub-positive inclusions. DFT differed from PD in the preponderance of histopathological changes in upper cortical layers, the sparseness of chromatolytic cells, and the absence of tau-positive Pick bodies (PBs). There were, however, two transitional cases showing Pick-type histology but no PBs, thus linking DFT and PD. PBs expressed chromogranin B and secretoneurin strongly, but chromogranin A only weakly. They were negative for the 70-kDa heat-shock protein, metallothionein, and glutathione-S-transferase.

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Received: 6 November 1995 / Revised: 12 January 1996 / Revised, accepted: 2 February 1996

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Bergmann, M., Kuchelmeister, K., Schmid, K. et al. Different variants of frontotemporal dementia: a neuropathological and immunohistochemical study. Acta Neuropathol 92, 170–179 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/s004010050505

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s004010050505

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