Mega, MS, Dinov, ID, Wang, A. Exploring Behavioral Psychopathology in Dementia Using Functional Neuroimaging. Abstract Invited Paper #2409. The International Psychogeriatric Association, XI Congress, Chicago, IL, USA, 17-22 August 2003.

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Abstract Objective: Understanding the brain correlates of behavioral disturbances is now possible using resting functional imaging in patients with dementia. Many dementia patients however have multiple behavioral symptoms at a given time. Such complex presentations complicate the isolation of specific brain behavior correlates. We investigate approaches used for controlling multiple behaviors in dementia patients using neuroimaging and novel statistical and experimental designs.
Design: A review of past work and new presentations of functional imaging using 99mTc-HMPAO single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in patients with dementia.
Materials & Methods: We review past work using SPECT to isolate brain regions associated with specific behavioral abnormalities in dementia patients. New work utilizing Sub-Volume Thresholding (SVT) integrating principle component analysis (PCA) with the voxel-wise assessment of regions significantly associated with a spectrum of behavioral disturbance is also presented.
Results: Paralimbic abnormalities have a better correlate with behavioral psychopathology while isocortical abnormalities are associated with cognitive dysfunction.
Conclusion: SVT-PCA maybe a useful method for exploring clusters of behavioral profiles and their associated neuronal correlates thereby accommodating the complex clinical presentations many dementia patients demonstrate.

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\Ivo D. Dinov, Ph.D., Lab of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine/