Dominantly inherited dementia and parkinsonism, with non-Alzheimer amyloid plaques: a new neurogenetic disorder.

A family is described in which a dominant form of inheritance, probably autosomal dominant, expresses severe dementia and parkinsonism as the major clinical features. Neuropathological correlates in two autopsied members of this family consisted of extracellular hyaline eosinophilic, congophilic amyloid plaques in decreasing order of frequency in the cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, thalamus, and substantia nigra, and atrophy and gliosis of the basal ganglia and substantia nigra. The extracellular plaques did not stain with antibody raised against the prion protein nor with two separate anti-amyloid A4 antibodies. The combination of dominantly inherited dementia with parkinsonism and extracellular plaques in this distribution that are amyloid and prion protein antibody negative has not been previously reported and thus may represent a new neurological genetic disorder.