Affiliations: [a] School of Graduate Psychology, Pacific University, Hillsboro, OR, USA
| [b] Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
| [c] Division of Neurology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| [d] Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Claudia Jacova, PhD, School of Graduate Psychology, Pacific University, 190 SE 8th Avenue, Hillsboro, OR 97123, USA. Tel.: +1 503 352 3613; E-mail: cjacova@pacificu.edu.
Note: [1] These authors contributed equally to this work.
Note: [2] Statistical analysis: Courtney Alexander and Dagmar Zeithamova.
Abstract: We tested the potential of task-based functional neuroimaging as a biomarker of emerging prefrontal brain changes in progranulin (GRN) mutations carriers. Five GRN mutation carriers free of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and 11 non-carriers from families with FTD-GRN underwent functional MRI while solving matrix-reasoning problems. Mutation carriers displayed slower responses for more difficult problems and lower lateral prefrontal activation across all problems. Overall task-evoked posterior ventrolateral prefrontal activation predicted mutation status with 100% sensitivity and 91% specificity. Volumetric differences did not account for activation differences. Prefrontal activation may have utility as a biomarker in GRN mutation.
