Table 1.
Principal characteristics of studied patients.
Table 2.
Neuropsychological assessment of PCA patients.
Fig 1.
Volumes of interest (VOIs; size = 20x20x20mm) investigated by 1H MRS (top panel).
Typical spectra obtained from VOIs positioned in the occipital lobes of a control subject and a patient with PCA are also shown (bottom panel) See text for further details.
Fig 2.
VBM analysis: PCA patients compared to healthy controls showed a widespread pattern of bilateral grey matter loss, predominantly affecting the posterior areas of the brain.
The opposite contrast (PCA patients more than controls) did not reveal any significant difference. Statistical threshold: p<0.05 Family Wise Error (FWE) corrected at cluster level. See text for further details.
Fig 3.
Column graphs showing mean and standard deviations of 1H MRS metabolite ratios (NAA/Cr, Cho/Cr and Ins/Cr) form the different VOIs in patients with PCA (orange) and healthy controls (blue).
In the case of bilateral VOIs (i.e., occipital lobe and centrum semiovale), left and right measures were averaged. PCA patients compared to controls showed a significant decrease of NAA/Cr in the occipital lobes (panel A) and in the posterior cingulate gyrus (panel B). Additionally, PCA patients showed a significant increase of Ins/Cr in the occipital lobes (panel A). No significant between group differences were observed in the anterior cingulum (panel C) and in the centrum semiovale. Statistical threshold: p>0.012 after Bonferroni’s correction. See text for further details.