[Corticobasal syndrome: recent advances and future directions]

Abstract

Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder described by Rebeiz et al. It is characterized by progressive, asymmetric, cortical (eg, apraxia, alien limb phenomena, cortical sensory loss, and myoclonus), and extrapyramidal (eg, rigidity, bradykinesia, dystonia, and tremor) dysfunction. However, CBD has many clinical phenotypes, and the features used for predicting CBD have low sensitivity. Therefore, the term corticobasal syndrome (CBS) has been used to characterize such clinical features, whereas the term CBD is used to refer to the pathological disorder. The most frequent causes of CBS are CBD, followed by Alzheimer's disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, frontotemporal lobar degeneration with TDP-43 pathology (sporadic and familial), Pick's disease, Lewy body disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration with fused in sarcoma-positive inclusions, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and mutations in the microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT) and progranulin (GRN) genes. The topography of neurodegeneration dictates the clinical syndrome not according to the underlying pathology. Researchers have attempted to develop fluid biomarkers or imaging analysis for diagnosing CBS. The aim of this review was to highlight recent advances in CBS diagnosis and discuss future directions.