Metabolic Characterization of Alzheimer's Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia by 23Na-MRI and FDG-PET

Launched by CENTRE HOSPITALIER ST ANNE · Jul 28, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This clinical trial is studying two common types of dementia: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Both conditions affect the brain but in different ways, and it can be hard for doctors to tell them apart early on. This study aims to find new ways to spot differences between AD and FTD by using advanced brain imaging techniques that look at how brain cells use energy and how sodium behaves in brain tissue. The goal is to help doctors diagnose these diseases earlier and more accurately, which could lead to better treatment options before serious brain damage happens.

People who might join the study include adults aged 65 to 74 who have early-stage Alzheimer’s disease or frontotemporal dementia, as well as healthy adults without cognitive problems to serve as a comparison group. To participate, patients with Alzheimer’s should show mild memory problems and specific markers in their spinal fluid, while those with frontotemporal dementia will have changes in behavior, language, or brain scans that match that diagnosis. Healthy volunteers must have no psychiatric issues and perform well on memory tests. Participants will undergo several types of brain scans, including MRI and PET scans, and may have blood and spinal fluid tests, along with memory and thinking assessments. The study is not yet recruiting, and people with certain medical conditions or devices that make MRI unsafe cannot join. This research hopes to improve early diagnosis and tracking of these dementias, potentially leading to better care and treatment in the future.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • Patients with Alzheimer's disease
• • CDR (Clinical Dementia Rating Scale) = 0.5 or 1
• • Progressive amnestic syndrome, associated or not with other cognitive impairments
• • Biological criteria: CSF biomarkers suggestive of AD-continuum (Jack et al., 2018)
• • Patients with FTD
• • Modifications of the personality and the social conducts in the foreground (behavioral variant) (Rascovsky et al., 2011)
• * Primary progressive aphasia (Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011):
• • Effortful, agrammatic speech plus at least one of: a) impaired grammar/sentence comprehension with relatively preserved single word comprehension, or b) groping, distorted speech production (apraxia of speech)
• • Semantic language disorders
• • Compatible brain imaging: profile of atrophy and/or hypometabolism on FDG-PET (or hypoperfusion on SPECT) compatible with the diagnosis of FTD and/or absence of atypia
• • Biological criteria: No AD profile on CSF biomarkers if available; if CSF not available: diagnosis based on clinical criteria left to the judgment of the investigators
• • Cognitively healthy controls
• • Absence of known psychiatric disorder
• • Score on the Folstein Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE \> or = 27) with no more than one word missing
• • Normal neuropsychological assessment for the age and the educational level, particularly Scores on the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) of \>25 for free recall and \>44 for total recall.
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • Subject with an evolving and/or badly checked psychiatric pathology (left to the judgment of the investigator).
• • Subject with a grave, severe or unstable pathology (left to the judgment of the investigator) the nature of which can interfere with the variables of evaluation.
• • Epileptic subjects, with poor tolerance to MRI (1.5T, 3T or 7T),
• • Subject presenting contraindications to the MRI such as Pacemaker or stimulating neurosensory or implantable defibrillator, cochlear implants, eye or cerebral ferromagnetic foreign bodies close to nervous structures, metallic prostheses, neurosurgical ventriculoperitoneal shunt valves
• • Known or supposed histories (\< or = 5 years) of severe alcoholism or misuse of drugs
• • Vascular, inflammatory or expansive, lesion visible on the MRI which can interfere with the criteria of diagnosis.
• • No health insurance
• • Agitation of the patient: not cooperative or agitated patients, claustrophobic subjects