Familial frontotemporal lobar degeneration (f-FTLD) represents a critical group to target for clinical trials in FTLD. F-FTLD accounts for 30 to 50% of all FTLD. Three mutations account for the majority of known mutations that cause f-FTLD. Mutations in the tau gene (MAPT) lead to FTLD-tau pathology, and mutations in the progranulin (GRN) or chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C90RF72 ) genes both lead to TDP-43 proteinopathy. Because each mutation is highly predictive of the underlying proteinopathy, clinical trials of new therapies directed at these specific biochemical targets would be guaranteed a homogeneous population if they focused on f-FTLD. In addition, f-FTLD is the only context in which patients affected by FTLD can be identified in the presymptomatic and early symptomatic stages, which are becomign increasingly important in models of treatment for neurodegenerative disease. However, little is known about the natural history of presymptomatic f-FTLD. The proposed study will quantify rates of clinical decline in both symptomatic and presymptomatic f-FTLD and examine rates of brain MR imaging changes in presymptomatic individuals. We will enroll 455 asymptomatic individuals age 30 or older from families with a known FTLD-causative mutation and anticipate that approximately half will be mutation carriers, as well as 455 symptomatic individuals. Clinical assessments including cognitive testing and functional evaluations will be performed at baseline and one year in all participants. In asymtomatic patients, we will obtain T1-MR1 (and additional imaging sequences) at baseline and one year.
The Aims for the project are: 1. To establish the magnitude and variance across subjects of clinical decline over one year in symptomatic (CDR>=0.5) f- FTLD due to known mutations, 2. To examine the relationship between medical comorbidities, lifestyle factors and natural history in f-FTLD, and 3. To establish the magnitude and variance across subjects of changes in imaging and clinical measures in presymptomatic (CDR=0) f-FTLD. Accomplishment of these Aims will provide much needed data for planning clinical trials in f-FTLD.

Public Health Relevance

A substantial portion of FTLD is caused by specific mutations that have already been identified, allowing researchers to know the biological mechanism leading to brain disease in such patients (familial FTLD, or f-FTLD). F-FTLD patients are a very important group for enrollment in clinical trials. To prepare for these trials, this project will quantify change over one year in f-FTLD using cognitive testing and imaging.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Specialized Center--Cooperative Agreements (U54)
Project #
1U54NS092089-01
Application #
8924341
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZTR1-CI-8 (01))
Program Officer
Sutherland, Margaret L
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2014-09-30
Budget End
2015-07-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$693,943
Indirect Cost
$198,814
Name
University of California San Francisco
Department
Type
DUNS #
094878337
City
San Francisco
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94143
Schneider, Raphael; McKeever, Paul; Kim, TaeHyung et al. (2018) Downregulation of exosomal miR-204-5p and miR-632 as a biomarker for FTD: a GENFI study. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 89:851-858
Ljubenkov, Peter A; Staffaroni, Adam M; Rojas, Julio C et al. (2018) Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers predict frontotemporal dementia trajectory. Ann Clin Transl Neurol 5:1250-1263
La Joie, Renaud; Bejanin, Alexandre; Fagan, Anne M et al. (2018) Associations between [18F]AV1451 tau PET and CSF measures of tau pathology in a clinical sample. Neurology 90:e282-e290
Iaccarino, Leonardo; Tammewar, Gautam; Ayakta, Nagehan et al. (2018) Local and distant relationships between amyloid, tau and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's Disease. Neuroimage Clin 17:452-464
Henry, Maya L; Hubbard, H Isabel; Grasso, Stephanie M et al. (2018) Retraining speech production and fluency in non-fluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia. Brain 141:1799-1814
Ossenkoppele, Rik; Rabinovici, Gil D; Smith, Ruben et al. (2018) Discriminative Accuracy of [18F]flortaucipir Positron Emission Tomography for Alzheimer Disease vs Other Neurodegenerative Disorders. JAMA 320:1151-1162
Mandelli, Maria Luisa; Welch, Ariane E; Vilaplana, Eduard et al. (2018) Altered topology of the functional speech production network in non-fluent/agrammatic variant of PPA. Cortex 108:252-264
Watson, Christa L; Possin, Katherine; Allen, I Elaine et al. (2018) Visuospatial Functioning in the Primary Progressive Aphasias. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 24:259-268
Deutschländer, Angela B; Boeve, Bradley F; Rosen, Howard J et al. (2018) Tau Mutations as a Novel Risk Factor for Cancer-Letter. Cancer Res 78:6523-6524
Seo, Sang Won; Thibodeau, Marie-Pierre; Perry, David C et al. (2018) Early vs late age at onset frontotemporal dementia and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Neurology 90:e1047-e1056

Showing the most recent 10 out of 92 publications