Voxel-based morphometry

(VBM) studies showed that regional gray matter (GM) loss is not confined to motor regions, but is extended to the frontal, temporal, parietal, and limbic regions (Grosskreutz et al. 2006; Turner et al. 2007). In particular, the frontal regions have been observed to have the most severe atrophy in patients with ALS and FTD. By employing VBM, Abrahams et al. (2005a) reported white matter (WM) reductions in the medial temporal lobe, anterior cingulate gyrus, and medial frontal lobes in a group of ALS patients with impaired verbal fluency scores. Among the modern structural Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical neuroimaging methods, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has provided evidence of significant reduction of fractional anisotrophy (FA)

not only in CST but also in extramotor Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical regions, including frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital WM, corpus callosum, the hippocampal formation, and the insula (Sach et al. 2004; Sage et al. 2007; Senda et al. 2009; Lule et al. 2010). Functional neuroimaging has supported the clinical findings of frontal cortical involvement not Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical only in patients with an ALS/dementia complex but also in patients with ALS and subclinical cognitive impairment. Abnormal activations extending beyond the sensorimotor cortex in ALS has been proved in PET and fMRI studies during motor execution tasks and verbal fluency tasks. In particular, a hypoactivation has been measured in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in both conditions (Kew et al. 1993; Stanton et al. 2007). Furthermore, hypoperfusion in the frontal cortex in ALS with or without cognitive Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical deficits measured with PET (Ludolph et al. 1992) and fMRI (Tanaka et al. 1993) and association of reduced frontal executive function and reduced activity in frontoparietal areas measured with PET has been shown (Abrahams et

al. 1996). Other functional imaging studies have provided further evidence for extra-motor involvement in ALS (Lule et al. 2007; Han and Ma 2010; Mohammadi et al. 2011). The combination of neuropsychological measures and multimodal neuroimaging Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical approach seem promising in highlighting the cerebral mechanism underlying ALS cognitive deficits, identifying the differential Amisulpride role of GM and WM dysfunctions. An important contribution in the study of extra-motor functions is represented by event-related potentials. Some studies have showed that some ALS patients produce less typical ERPs than healthy matched subjects (Paulus et al. 2002). A previous ERP study in patients with sporadic ALS found that P3a and P3b amplitudes of ALS patients were lower compared with controls, and P3a latencies were significantly longer (Trametinib Hanagasi et al. 2002); ERP recordings in nondemented patients with sporadic ALS also showed prolonged N200 and P300 latencies compared to healthy controls (Gil et al. 1995). By employing neuropsychological measures, ERPs and clinical scales, Ogawa et al.