A new test can help predict whether a patient will develop frontal lobe dementia (Frontotemporal Dementia or FTD). Next to Alzheimer’s, FTD is the form of dementia that strikes people most frequently at a relatively young age—younger than 65.
In FTD, large numbers of brain cells begin to die off in the frontal lobe, the foremost part of the brain which comprises about 30 percent of brain mass. The frontal lobe helps regulate behavior, movement, and mood, and is responsible for functions such as language. The first signs of FTD are changes in behavior and personality. In later stages, the victim suffers from memory loss.
Researcher Christine Van Broeckhoven and her colleagues found that a large percentage of people who have FTD have a genetic defect in chromosome 17. Those people produce only half the normal amount of a progranulin protein, and Van Broeckhoven discovered that a shortage of this protein, which is a growth factor, leads to cells dying in the frontal lobe. Additional results indicate that a lack of progranulin also plays a role in Alzheimer’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
Krisel Sleegers, one of Van Broeckhoven’s scientists, has developed a test to measure the amount of progranulin in the blood. The test, which is simple and could be used on a large scale, will help doctors determine if someone is at risk of developing FTD long before symptoms appear.
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