Retrosplenial cortex (BA 29) volumes in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

Background. The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) is a crucial transit region between the hippocampus and cingulate cortex and has been implicated in spatial navigation and memory. Importantly, RSC atrophy is a predilection site of Alzheimer’s (AD) pathology but there have been no studies assessing structural changes in the RSC in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Methods. A manual tracing method was used to calculate regional RSC volume in MRI scans from patients with bvFTD (n= 15) and AD (n= 15), as well as age and sex matched controls (n=15). Results. RSC volumes were significantly reduced in the AD (p<0.001), but not the bvFTD cohort (p>0.1) compared to age-matched controls. RSC volumes discriminated bvFTD from AD in over 90% of the cases. Conclusion. These findings provide further evidence that RSC atrophy is specific to AD, which might explain the commonly observed spatial disorientation in this patient group.