Predictors of Hippocampal Atrophy in Patients with Alzheimers Disease

Abstract

Hippocampus is a bilateral brain structure located deep into the temporal lobes. It is newlineimportant for learning and episodic memory and is vulnerable structure, damaged by a newlinevariety of factors. Incidentally, it is among the first and most severely affected newlinestructure that undergoes atrophy in Alzheimer s disease (AD), the leading cause of newlinedementia. newlineThough AD is considered to be neurodegenerative, the role of vascular and other newlineassociated factors in causing hippocampal atrophy is growing. Hypertension, diabetes, newlineseizures, depression are comorbid illnesses in AD. Also, patients with AD may newlinedevelop alterations of biochemical parameters e.g. serum cortisol, vitamin D, vitamin newlineB12, and serum homocysteine etc. Clinical predictors of hippocampal atrophy and newlinebiochemical alterations mentioned above, are some of the common factors previously newlineexplored to be predictors of hippocampal atrophy in general not in AD in particular. newlineIn the present study, an attempt was made to explore the effect of presence of various newlineclinical and biochemical predictors of hippocampal atrophy in patients with AD. newline newlineMaterial and Methods newline newlineA total of 280 subjects reporting to the Department of Neurology of a Tertiary Care newlineHospital with memory/and or cognitive complaints from November 2013 to newlineDecember 2015 were screened and a total of 144 subjects fulfilled the study inclusion newlinecriteria.