Frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, is a group of disorders which result from damage to neurons in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. Whereas Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by memory loss, FTD is often linked to behavioral changes and can affect one’s personality and communication abilities.
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Recently, the former talk show host Wendy Williams was revealed to be suffering from FTD. Bruce Willis is another celebrity who is known to have FTD. Usually, this disease affects people ages 45 to 64, and can often be misdiagnosed as early onset Alzheimer’s, depression, Parkinson’s disease, or some other psychiatric condition.
At the moment, there is no known cure or treatment for FTD, and the progression of the disease ranges from 2 to 20 years. Fen Biao-Gao, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, is currently doing studies on the disease.
They have identified certain links between FTD and neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease. The laboratory where he works, in collaboration with neurologist Bruce Miller, has pinpointed that FTD patients had gene mutations in progranulin and C9orf72, both of which have been found to cause ALS.
There might be some connection between these genes and the pathology of FTD, and so Gao has been working with other researchers like cell biologist J. Paul Taylor who helped discover the modifier genes which function to transport molecules in and out of the nucleus of a neuron as well as genes that encode proteins which aid in repairing damaged DNA.
Potential treatments may include gene-silencing techniques which will target the specific modifier genes that cause the disease. At the moment, Gao and other scientists are still trying to map out the genes and proteins that may be responsible for causing FTD, so it might take some time before any treatment will be developed.
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Source: neatorama