Interactions between traumatic brain injury and frontotemporal degeneration.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Prior work in smaller cohorts suggests that traumatic brain injury (TBI) may be a risk factor for frontotemporal degeneration (FTD). We sought to confirm and extend these results using the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center Uniform Data Set.

METHODS: We compared the TBI prevalence between FTD subjects and matched normal controls. Indices of cognitive, behavioral, functional, and global dementia severity were compared between FTD subjects with and without prior TBI.

RESULTS: Remote TBI with extended loss of consciousness (TBI-ext) was more common in individuals with FTD than in controls (OR: 1.67; 95% CI: 1.004-2.778). With TBI-ext, less functional and global impairment was seen in the behavioral variant of FTD, but more behavioral pathology was seen in the semantic variant.

CONCLUSION: TBI may increase the FTD risk and influence clinical symptomatology and severity in FTD subtypes.