Frontal syndrome of progressive supranuclear palsy
Cambier, J.; Masson, M.; Viader, F.; Limodin, J.; Strube, A.
Revue Neurologique (Paris) 141(8-9): 528-536
1985
ISSN/ISBN: 0035-3787 PMID: 4089415 Document Number: 249703
Neuropsychological findings in 10 clinical cases of progressive supranuclear palsy are presented. Patients were aged 52 to 80 and the duration of their illness was 1 to 5 years. Severe psychological disturbances e.g. depression or outbursts of irritability were prominent features in 5 patients. Formal neuropsychological testing disclosed mental slowing, impaired attention, reduced verbal influency and elaborated linguistic abilities, poor abstract thinking and reasoning, mild to moderate memory loss, dynamic apraxia, grasping, motor impersistence, imitation and utilization behaviour. The clinical similarities between these neuropsychological changes and frontal lobe syndromes, together with the lack of cortical involvement, suggest that the dementia of progressive supernuclear palsy could be explained by deactivation of the frontal cortex by subcortical lesions. The special importance of pallidal and mesencephalic reticular involvement in the syndrome is hypothetized.