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. 2015 Jun 4:9:317.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00317. eCollection 2015.

Estimating frontal and parietal involvement in cognitive estimation: a study of focal neurodegenerative diseases

Teagan A Bisbing  1 , Christopher A Olm  1 , Corey T McMillan  1 , Katya Rascovsky  1 , Laura Baehr  1 , Kylie Ternes  1 , David J Irwin  1 , Robin Clark  2 , Murray Grossman  1
Affiliations

Estimating frontal and parietal involvement in cognitive estimation: a study of focal neurodegenerative diseases

Teagan A Bisbing et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

We often estimate an unknown value based on available relevant information, a process known as cognitive estimation. In this study, we assess the cognitive and neuroanatomic basis for quantitative estimation by examining deficits in patients with focal neurodegenerative disease in frontal and parietal cortex. Executive function and number knowledge are key components in cognitive estimation. Prefrontal cortex has been implicated in multilevel reasoning and planning processes, and parietal cortex has been associated with number knowledge required for such estimations. We administered the Biber cognitive estimation test (BCET) to assess cognitive estimation in 22 patients with prefrontal disease due to behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), to 17 patients with parietal disease due to corticobasal syndrome (CBS) or posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) and 11 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Both bvFTD and CBS/PCA patients had significantly more difficulty with cognitive estimation than controls. MCI were not impaired on BCET relative to controls. Regression analyses related BCET performance to gray matter atrophy in right lateral prefrontal and orbital frontal cortices in bvFTD, and to atrophy in right inferior parietal cortex, right insula, and fusiform cortices in CBS/PCA. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a frontal-parietal network plays a crucial role in cognitive estimation.

Keywords: behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration; cognitive estimation; corticobasal syndrome; parietal cortices; posterior cortical atrophy; prefrontal cortices.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Mean z-scores across all Biber cognitive estimation test questions for each group.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Regions of significantly reduced GM density relative to controls (blue) and regression relating GM density to task performance (red) for behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration (A) and corticobasal syndrome and posterior cortical atrophy (B).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Significantly reduced FA in WM tracts (RGB) associated with GM atrophy regions related to cognitive estimation task performance (cyan) for patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration (A) and for patients with corticobasal syndrome and posterior cortical atrophy (B). We also illustrate WM regions with reduced FA (orange). Please refer to Table 5. *Red: left–right, green: anterior–posterior, blue: inferior–superior.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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