Study offers new clues to early detection of frontotemporal dementia in middle age

Dementia usually affects the elderly, so when it occurs in middle age, it can be difficult to recognize. The most common form is frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which is often mistaken for depression, schizophrenia or Parkinson’s disease before the correct diagnosis is reached.

Now, as part of a study funded by NIH, researchers from UC San Francisco have found some indications about how FTD develops that can lead to new diagnostics and get more patients in clinical studies. The findings appear in Natural aging on May 16.

The team has measured more than 4,000 proteins that were found in spinal crane fluid of 116 FTD patients and compared to those of 39 of their healthy relatives. All 116 patients had inherited forms of FTD, allowing researchers to study the disease in living people with confirmed diagnosis, something that is not possible in non-inherit FTD cases, which can only be confirmed after death.

The composition of the proteins that have changed in FTD suggest that these patients have problems with RNA regulation – required for the correct expression of genes in the brain – together with defects that influence connections in their brains. These proteins, researchers think, can be the first specific markers for FTD who come to the fore as the disease develops in middle age.

FTD influences people in the prime of their lives and stripped them of their independence. But there is no definitive way to diagnose it in living patients, in contrast to other dementies such as Alzheimer’s disease. ”

If we can identify FTD in the beginning, perhaps with the help of a few proteins that we have identified, we can lead patients to the right resources, bring them to the right therapeutic tests and, ultimately, we hope they offer precision treatments. ”

Rowan Saloner, PhD, Professor in the UCSF memory and aging center and accompanying author of the article

The patients came from the Allftd Consortium, which is helped by study co-author of Adam Boxer, MD, PhD and Howie Rosen, MD, from UCSF and Brad Boeve, MD, from the Mayo Clinic. Kaitlin Casaletto, PhD, professor at the UCSF memory and aging center, is the senior author of the study.