Parkinson's disease - Associated cognitive impairment: neuropsychological and neuroradiological data. MRI indexes of temporal and frontal atrophy [Compromissione cognitiva nella malattia di Parkinson: Sinergismo discriminativo neuropsicologico e neuroradiologico. Analisi multivariata di indici RM lineari di atrofia frontale e temporale]

Parkinson's Disease (PD)-associated cognitive impairment is frequent, yet often difficult to diagnose early and precisely. Given the promising results of linear and volumetric MRI studies in dementia of Alzheimer's type and in other types of dementia, we tested the discriminative accuracy of linear measures of frontal and temporal atrophy and their value in supporting the classical clinical and psychometric diagnostic criteria for dementia in Parkinson's disease. Demographic, clinical, neuropsychological and neuroradiological data were collected from 38 subjects (14 controls, 14 patients with idiopathic PD without dementia, 10 patients with idiopathic PD and dementia). Some neuroradiological indexes of temporal and frontal atrophy, which we have investigated in our study, have a significant discriminative power for dementia that increase sinergically those of the neuropsychological indexes.