Frontotemporal dementia neuroimaging: a guide for clinicians.

Frontotemporal dementia represents an important cause of dementia that requires differentiation from Alzheimer's disease. As molecular therapies for both diseases begin to emerge, neuroimaging biomarkers will be needed that can improve diagnostic accuracy and enable treatment monitoring.At present, structural magnetic resonance imaging provides a useful adjunct to clinical assessment,helping to distinguish frontotemporal dementia from Alzheimer's disease and from nonneurodegenerative disease. Future imaging research will seek to more directly assay disease by assessing network level pathophysiology and accumulation of misfolded proteins in cerebral tissues. Copyright (c) 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel.