We have recently discovered in Torino (Italy) a new pedigree with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The index patient is a woman who, at the age of 43 years, showed progressive memory impairment and ideomotor apraxia. Several relatives of the patient have had a history of dementia. The ancestors of the patient were from Calabria (southern Italy) and members of the family emigrated to the north of Italy, to France, and to the United States. Up to now, the new kindred comprises 1950 members, distributed in eight generations. Thirty members affected with Alzheimer's disease have been identified. Neuropathologic confirmation of antemortem clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease has been achieved for one patient. The pedigree is consistent with autosomal dominant inheritance. The clinical course of the disease is fairly uniform: the first symptom is memory loss, beginning around age 40 years. Psychiatric symptoms like hallucinations and delusions follow. At a later stage of the disease, several patients developed myoclonus and generalized epileptic seizures and eventually died with profound dementia. The "Torino family" shows several genealogic and clinical similarities with other large multigenerational familial Alzheimer's disease pedigrees originating from the Calabria region.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Neurophysiological study in an Italian family with autosomal dominant late-onset leukodystrophy.

Evoked potentials (EPs) and nerve conduction velocities (NCV) were evaluated in 8 affected and 10 asymptomatic members of a new Italian family with an adult-onset autosomal dominant leukodystrophy of uncertain nosography. NCV studies did not show anomalies. Various EPs abnormalities were found in all the symptomatic patients (increase of interpeak latency and/or loss of cortical responses), according with a myelin disorder. Among the asymptomatic subjects 3/10 (30%) showed similar anomalies at auditory brainstem EPs (increase of I-III/I-V/III-V interval). Two of these patients had normal brain MRI. This datum require further confirms (very low penetrance of the disease?), but it remarks the importance of a functional study of SNC in order to obtain elements not usually given from clinical and neuroradiological study.

Adolescent↗