Structural MRI of the basal forebrain as predictor of cognitive response to galantamine in healthy older adults—A randomized controlled double‐blinded crossover study. Issue 1 (5th April 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Müller, Patrick; Vellage, Anne‐Katrin; Schmicker, Marlen; Menze, Inga; Grothe, Michel J.; Teipel, Stefan J.; Müller, Notger G.
• Is Part Of: Alzheimer's & dementia. Volume 7:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2021-04-05
• Subjects: Alzheimer's disease -- basal forebrain -- galantamine -- magnetic resonance imaging -- personalized medicine; Dementia -- Periodicals; Dementia -- Treatment -- Periodicals; Alzheimer's disease -- Treatment -- Periodicals; Alzheimer's disease -- Periodicals; 616.831
• DOI: 10.1002/trc2.12153
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2352-8737

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: Cholinesterase inhibitors can enhance cognitive functions in healthy elderly and delay cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer`s disease (AD). However, not everyone benefits from this treatment (non‐responders). Current studies show clinical meaningful improvements only in one third of AD patients treated with cholinesterase inhibitors. Methods: Here we investigate structural magnetic resonance imaging of the basal forebrain cholinergic system volume (BFvol ) as a potential predictor of cognitive response to a single dose of galantamine in healthy adults (n = 18; 59 to 75 years). Results: We observed that the cognitive response to galantamine, more specifically the attention‐dependent filtering performance in a delayed match‐to‐sample working memory task, correlated with BFvol : Only participants with high BFvol showed a significant positive effect of galantamine on the ability to filter out distracting information during the working memory encoding process. Discussion: Future studies need to assess whether BFvol may serve as a predictor of the galantamine response in AD patients, too.