Concomitant PET Brain Imaging and Neuropsychological Assessment in Transient Global Amnesia

J Korean Neurol Assoc > Volume 25(1); 2007 > Article

Journal of the Korean Neurological Association 2007;25(1): 10-15.

일과성전기억상실증 환자에서 양전자방출 단층촬영과 신경심리검사

강민구, 권오대 이동국 천경아a

대구가톨릭대학교 의과대학 신경과학교실, 영남대학교 의과대학 핵의학교실a

Concomitant PET Brain Imaging and Neuropsychological Assessment in Transient Global Amnesia

Min Goo Kang

Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu; Department of Neuclear Medicinea, Yeungnam University College of Medicine, Daegu, Korea

Abstract

Background: Transient global amnesia (TGA) is one of the most striking syndromes in clinical neurology. In recent years, with the development of new types of imaging methods, particularly the clinical application of PET may have helped the medical personnel to understand the nature of this remarkable syndrome. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the common lesion of TGA by 18FDG-PET through Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) analysis and compare them with the results of the neuropsychological tests.
Methods: We studied prospectively 10 patients diagnosed clinically as TGA. They received brain MRI and/or CT and PET of the brain with 18FDG as the tracer. The results of the brain PET imaging of patients were analyzed with SPM and were compared with those of 15 normal controls. They also received SNSB and the Korean version of the Rey-Kim memory test.
Results: No obvious abnormality was found in the visual analysis of MRI or CT scans of the 10 patients with TGA. However SPM analysis of the brain PET imaging displayed low metabolic areas in the left primary motor and sensory cortex, bilateral anterior cingulate gyrus and right posterior thalamus. SNSB revealed multiple cognitive dysfunctions including visuospatial functions, visual memory, verbal memory, calculation, attention and frontal executive functions. In 5 patients, memory quotients were within the low average range.
Conclusions: SPM analysis of PET imaging displayed multiple low metabolic areas and these lesions were roughly correlated with the results of neuropsychological tests which showed defects of visuospatial functioning and frontal executive functioning. KeyWords:Transient global amnesia, Positron emission tomography, Statistical parametric mapping analysis, Seoul neuropsychological screening battery, Korean version of Rey-Kim memory test