Cerebellar hyperperfusion in semantic dementia

Abstract

Despite evidence of a cerebellar contribution to language, possible functional changes of the cerebellum in patients with language impairment secondary to cerebral neurodegeneration has not been investigated so far. We examined with resting perfusion single photon emission tomography one patient with semantic dementia and the data were compared with a normal subject database. Region of interest and Statistical Parametric Mapping 2 analysis showed in the patient hypoperfusion of the left temporal and parietal lobe and hyperperfusion in the superior vermis and cerebellar hemispheres (lobules IV, V, and VI). The cerebellum shows increased flow of possible compensatory significance in patients with language disturbance associated to cerebral degenerative changes.