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Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Clinical Geriatrician Hanneke Rhodius-Meester, Amsterdam UMC - University Medical Centers, The Netherlands
- Second opponent: Assistant professor Hugo Lövheim, Umeå University, Sweden
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Turid Birgitte Boye, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo
- Substitute chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Lars Nilsson
Chair of the Defence
Professor emeritus Ulrik Fredrik Malt, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Professor Dag Aarsland, King's College London
Summary
Neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression, apathy, hallucinations or delusions are common in Alzheimer’s disease dementia and mild cognitive impairment and may be a prodrome or risk factor to Alzheimer’s disease dementia. The frequency and groups of neuropsychiatric symptoms in all stages of cognitive impairment and their mechanisms are poorly understood, which may explain poor treatment options. It is unclear how neuropsychiatric symptoms are related to Alzheimer’s disease associated mechanisms such as cerebral atrophy, amyloid dysmetabolism and synaptic pathology. The identification of neuropsychiatric symptoms as clinical markers for Alzheimer’s disease dementia regardless of the stage of cognitive impairment may help facilitate early management and slow down the disease.
This thesis set the following aims: to describe the frequency and groups of neuropsychiatric in elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment and various stages of Alzheimer’s disease dementia; to assess the relation of neuropsychiatric symptoms to brain structure in magnet resonance imaging in patients with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease dementia; to explore cerebrospinal fluid markers for various Alzheimer associated pathologies in patients with late-life depression.
Depression is the most frequent neuropsychiatric symptom in mild cognitive impairment and is in some patients associated with Alzheimer typical biological changes in cerebrospinal fluid. Neuropsychiatric symptoms in this study show associations mostly to fronto-temporal structural brain changes, though not exclusively to Alzheimer typical atrophy. The study concludes that neuropsychiatric symptoms are highly prevalent across mild cognitive impairment and all stages of Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Various structural brain changes are associated to neuropsychiatric symptoms. Depression in late life may in some patients be regarded as an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease dementia.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.