The relationship between the cerebral blood flow, oxygen consumption and glucose metabolism in primary degenerative dementia

The CBF, CMRO₂ and CMRGlu were measured in patients with primary degenerative dementia including 5 patients with dementia of Alzheimer's type and 4 patients with Pick's disease, and then the correlation between the cerebral blood flow and energy metabolism was evaluated. The control subjects consisted of 5 age-matched normal volunteers. The CBF, CMRO₂ and CMRGlu decreased in the bilateral frontal, temporal and parietal regions in the patients with Alzheimer's dementia, while they decreased in the bilateral frontal and temporal regions in the patients with Pick's disease. Both the CBF and CMRO₂ were closely correlated with each other. However, the CMRGlu was more severely impaired than the CBF or CMRO₂ in both pathological conditions. These results suggested that CMRGlu began to decrease before the reduction of the aerobic metabolism and thus measuring the CMRGlu is considered to be the most sensitive method for detecting abnormal regions in primary degenerative dementia.