Cited by 204Dementia and Cognitive Impairment ResearchAlzheimer's disease research and treatmentsAmyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research

Selective frontoinsular von Economo neuron and fork cell loss in early behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia

Open access
Kim, Eun-Joo, Sidhu, Manu, Gaus, Stephanie E., Huang, Eric J., Hof, Patrick R., Miller, Bruce L., DeArmond, Stephen J., Seeley, William W.·2012·Cerebral Cortex

Abstract

Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) erodes complex social-emotional functions as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and frontoinsula (FI) degenerate, but the early vulnerable neuron within these regions has remained uncertain. Previously, we demonstrated selective loss of ACC von Economo neurons (VENs) in bvFTD. Unlike ACC, FI contains a second conspicuous layer 5 neuronal morphotype, the fork cell, which has not been previously examined. Here, we investigated the selectivity, disease-specificity, laterality, timing, and symptom relevance of frontoinsular VEN and fork cell loss in bvFTD. Blinded, unbiased, systematic sampling was used to quantify bilateral FI VENs, fork cells, and neighboring neurons in 7 neurologically unaffected controls (NC), 5 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and 9 patients with bvFTD, including 3 who died of comorbid motor neuron disease during very mild bvFTD. bvFTD showed selective FI VEN and fork cell loss compared with NC and AD, whereas in AD no significant VEN or fork cell loss was detected. Although VEN and fork cell losses in bvFTD were often asymmetric, no group-level hemispheric laterality effects were identified. Right-sided VEN and fork cell losses, however, correlated with each other and with anatomical, functional, and behavioral severity. This work identifies region-specific neuronal targets in early bvFTD.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/cercor/bhr004

Cites

59 of 59 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Alexithymia is associated with failure to engage the AIC and with degeneration of the AIC and of von Economo neurons in fronto-temporal dementia.

    “For example, alexithymia (broadly, deficits in emotional awareness) is associated with failure to engage AIC [81] and with degeneration of AIC and of VENs (Box 2) in the context of fronto-temporal dementia [82,83].”

    From Interoceptive inference, emotion, and the embodied self (2013) · cites this paper as [83]

    The Introduction and Discussion report frontoinsular degeneration and selective von Economo neuron loss in behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia, alongside social–emotional deficits. The section on bvFTD symptoms proposes a role for the right frontoinsula in awareness of feelings, but the paper does not specifically establish an association between alexithymia and that degeneration. The separate claim about failure to engage AIC is attributed to citation [81], not this source. (LLM, conf=0.83)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Rose M. 1928. Die inselrinde des menschen und der tiere. Journal fur Psychologie und Neurologie. 37:468--624.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Kim, E.-J., Sidhu, M., Gaus, S. E., Huang, E. J., Hof, P. R., Miller, B. L., DeArmond, S. J., & Seeley, W. W.
Affiliations
  • University of California, San Francisco (US)
  • Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (US)
  • Pusan National University Hospital (KR)
Venue
Cerebral Cortex
Published
2011-06-08
Volume
22
Issue
2
Pages
251-259
ISSN
  • 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-2199
OpenAlex
W2111738120
Cited by
204
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 12
FWCI
10.79
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • U.S. Public Health Service (P014600538, P50A916573)
  • National Institute on Aging (R01AG033017, P50 AG1657303-75271, K08AG027086, P01-AG19724, P01AG019724)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Neurology › Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research
Keywords
behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, von Economo neurons, frontoinsular cortex, neuronal loss, anterior cingulate cortex, Alzheimer's disease, hemispheric lateralization, disease severity
MeSH terms
Aged, Cell Count, Cognition Disorders, Female, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Functional Laterality, Male, Mental Status Schedule, Middle Aged, Neurons, Statistics as Topic, Cell Death, Frontotemporal Dementia

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review