DALLAS: Toxic buildup of a protein in the brain’s language centers may help drive a rare form of dementia that causes people to lose their ability to use language, a new study finds.
Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago used high-tech imaging to track the buildup of amyloid protein in the brains of people with the language-loss dementia, called primary progressive aphasia (PPA).
They compared those findings to amyloid buildup in the brains of people with memory loss related to Alzheimer’s disease.
Both illnesses are strongly linked to an accumulation of amyloid protein in the brain, the researchers noted.
Patients with PPA had more amyloid in the left side of the brain, where language processing occurs, than on the right side of the brain, the researchers reported recently.