Patricia Lillo

University of Chile · Neurología y Neurocirugía Sur

Objective: The Latin American Epidemiologic study of ALS (LAENALS) aims to gather data on ALS epidemiology, phenotype, and risk factors in Cuba, Chile, and Uruguay, to understand the impact of genetic and environmental factors on ALS. Methods: A harmonized data collection protocol was generated, and a Latin-American Spanish language Register was...

Introduction: Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) refers to a self-perceived experience of decreased cognitive function without objective signs of cognitive impairment in neuropsychological tests or daily living activities. Despite the abundance of instruments addressing SCD, there is no consensus on the methods to be used. Our study is founded on...

Multidisciplinary care and therapeutic advances in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that mainly affects the motor system, resulting in progressive weakness and muscle wasting. Despite the tremendous advances in physiopathological and clinical characterization, we do not have a curative...

Aging may diminish social cognition, which is crucial for interaction with others, and significant changes in this capacity can indicate pathological processes like dementia. However, the extent to which non-specific factors explain variability in social cognition performance, especially among older adults and in global settings, remains unknown. A...

Objective: Cognitive assessment able to detect impairments in the early neuropathological stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is urgently needed. The visual short-term memory binding task (VSTMBT) and the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) have been recommended by the neurodegenerative disease working group as promising tests to aid in...

Background: Although social cognition is compromised in patients with neurodegenerative disorders such as behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), research on moral emotions and their neural correlates in these populations is scarce. No previous study has explored the utility of moral emotions, compared to a...

Dementia worldwide is one of the most important causes of disability in the elderly and the most rapidly growing cause of death in the last 20 years in Chile. Cognitive complaint is considered a predictor for cognitive and functional decline (FD), incident mild cognitive impairment, and incident dementia. The GERO cohort aims to determine multidime...

Measures of social cognition have now become central in neuropsychology, being essential for early and differential diagnoses, follow-up, and rehabilitation in a wide range of conditions. With the scientific world becoming increasingly interconnected, international neuropsychological and medical collaborations are burgeoning to tackle the global ch...

Measures of social cognition have now become central in neuropsychology, being essential for early and differential diagnoses, follow-up and rehabilitation in a wide range of conditions. With the scientific world becoming increasingly interconnected, international neuropsychological and medical collaborations are burgeoning to tackle the global cha...

ABSTRACT: The Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) is a screening test that measures executive functions. Although this instrument has been validated in several countries, its diagnostic utility in a Chilean population has not been studied yet. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to (1) adapt FAB in a Chilean population; (2) study the psychometric properties...

Background: Processing of linguistic negation has been associated to inhibitory brain mechanisms. However, no study has tapped this link via multimodal measures in patients with core inhibitory alterations, a critical approach to reveal direct neural correlates and potential disease markers. Methods: Here we examined oscillatory, neuroanatomical...

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is the third most common form of dementia across all age groups and is a leading cause of early-onset dementia. The Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) includes a spectrum of diseases that are classified according to their clinical presentation and patterns of neurodegeneration. There are two main types of FTD: behavioral FT...

Background: There is evolving evidence of non-uniform distribution of ALS worldwide, with apparently lower incident and prevalent rates outside populations of European origin. However, the phenotype, survival and environmental risk in populations of mixed ancestral origin have not been well established. Large scale population based studies of incid...

Background: The cognitive and neuropsychiatric deficits present in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) are associated with loss of functionality in the activities of daily living (ADLs). The main purpose of this study was to examine and explore the association between the cognitive and neuropsychiatric features that mig...

Several genetically-targeted therapies are being developed for ALS. Research is increasingly supportive of a greater incidence of clinically actionable variants in sporadic ALS than previously reported. Salmon et al. outline the need to improve access, and offer genetic testing to all people diagnosed with ALS.

Novel neuropsychological approaches able to detect subtle deficits in preclinical Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are largely missing. The Visual short-term memory binding task (VSTMBT) and the Free and cued selective reminding test (FCSRT) arise as strong candidates as they have proved effective to identify subjects throughout the AD continuum with high...

Individuals tend to accumulate a larger number of losses in old age than in prior stages of life, leading to major consequences for the well-being of older adults. Research has generally focused on a single type of loss, with only a handful of studies exploring the accumulation of losses in old age and examining which and how many losses are experi...

Background Cognitive assessments able to detect impairments as early as neuropathological changes that occur in neurodegenerative diseases initiate are urgently needed. The Visual Short‐Term Memory Binding Test (VSTMBT) and the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCRST) have been recently recommended by the Neurodegenerative Diseases Working Gr...

Background Social cognition impairments have been extensively described in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Moral emotions have recently emerged as a potentially sensitive domain to characterize and discriminate bvFTD patients from other types of dementia. Here, we examined the usefulness of moral emotions measures...

Objective: To compare social cognition performance between patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and those patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Methods: We included 21 participants with ALS, 20 with bvFTD and 21 healthy controls who underwent a comprehensive cognitive battery, including the short version o...

Existen 3 variantes de afasia progresiva primaria (APP), que se distinguen según el dominio lingüístico predominantemente alterado: no fluente, logopénica y semántica. Una herramienta que ayuda a su clasificación es el Sydney Language Battery (Sydbat), el cual no se encuentra validado en Chile. El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar la posibl...

Across Latin American and Caribbean countries (LACs), the fight against dementia faces pressing challenges, such as heterogeneity, diversity, political instability, and socioeconomic disparities. These can be addressed more effectively in a collaborative setting that fosters open exchange of knowledge. In this work, the Latin American and Caribbean...

Background Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) have a significant impairment in social emotion recognition. Most of these studies assess emotional perception as the ability to identify others' facial emotions (Ekman faces). Nevertheless, emotional recognition with information that integrates whole‐body and postural contr...

Background Decades of researches aiming to unveil truths about human neuropsychology may have instead unveil facts appropriate to only a fraction of the world’s population: those living in western educated rich democratic nations (Muthukrishna et al., 2020 Psych Sci). So far, most studies were conducted as if education and cultural assumptions on w...

Background Dementia is one of the mean causes of disability in elderly. Peripheral inflammatory biomarkers and ApoE‐ε4 allele have been described as important biological risk factors of dementia in Caucasian population. Currently, there is scarce information about the specific age‐related and predisposition factors to develop dementia in Latino pop...

Background With the global population aging and life expectancy increasing, dementia has turned a priority in the health care system. In Chile, dementia is one of the most important causes of disability in the elderly and the most rapidly growing cause of death in the last 20 years. Cognitive complaint is considered a predictor for cognitive and fu...

Objective: To compare social cognition performance between patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and those patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Methods: We included 21 participants with ALS, 20 with bvFTD and 21 healthy controls who underwent a comprehensive cognitive battery, including the short version...

Humans have developed specific abilities to interact efficiently with their conspecifics (social cognition). Despite abundant behavioral and neuroscientific research, the influence of cultural factors on these skills remains poorly understood. This issue is of particular importance as most cognitive tasks are developed in highly specific contexts,...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are the most common neurodegenerative early-onset dementias. Despite the fact that both conditions have a very distinctive clinical pattern, they present with an overlap in their cognitive and behavioral features that may lead to misdiagnosis or delay in diagnosis. The current review intend...

Background Impairments in activities of daily living (ADL) are a criterion for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia. However, ADL gradually decline in AD, impacting on advanced (a-ADL, complex interpersonal or social functioning), instrumental (IADL, maintaining life in community), and finally basic functions (BADL, activities related to physiological...

Background The Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III), an adaptation of the ACE cognitive screening test, has been demonstrated to have high sensitivity and specificity in detecting cognitive impairment in patients with dementia and other neurological and psychiatric disorders. Although the Spanish-language version of the ACE-III has alr...

Previously thought to be a pure motor disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is now established as multisystem neurodegenerative disorder that lies on a continuum with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Cognitive and behavioral symptoms primarily extend to executive function, personality, social conduct, and emotion processing. The assessment and...

Objective: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease with prominent motor symptoms. Patients with ALS may also manifest frontal behavior symptoms and cognitive decline, including impairment in facial emotion recognition. The authors aimed to investigate whether deficits in emotion recognition were associated with frontal b...

Background: Cognitive impairment is a relevant contributor of the medical and social burden in Progressive MS. Social Cognition, the neurocognitive processes underlying social interaction, has been explored mainly in European and North American cohorts, influencing social aspects of quality of life (QOL) of early MS patients and families. Few stud...

Background This is the first study investigating the association of contextual variables and mortality by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in Latin America. Objective To determine the association of contextual variables and mortality rates by ALS in Chile over the last 24 years. Patients and Methods / Material and Methods A 24 years (1990-2013)...

Background This is the first study investigating the association of contextual variables and mortality by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in Latin America. Objective To determine the association of contextual variables and mortality rates by ALS in Chile over the last 24 years. Patients and Methods / Material and Methods A 24 years (1990-2013)...

Resumen Introducción El Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III) es una adaptación del test de cribado ACE, la cual ha demostrado tener una alta sensibilidad y especificidad para detectar disfunción cognitiva en pacientes con demencia y otras patologías neurológicas y psiquiátricas. Si bien el ACE-III ya ha sido validado en castellano (Es...

Abstract-Population aging is among the most important global transformations. Compared to European and North American countries, Chile is among the countries with the fastest growth of life expectancy at birth during recent decades. The aging of Chile's population is related to the improvement of living conditions, but also entails risks that tend...

Background: The Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q) is an informant-based instrument that measures the presence and severity of 12 Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) in patients with dementia as well as the informant’s distress. Objective: To measure the psychometric properties of the NPI-Q and the prevalence of NPS in patients with Alzh...

Developing effective and affordable biomarkers for dementias is critical given the difficulty to achieve early diagnosis. In this sense, electroencephalographic (EEG) methods offer promising alternatives due to their low cost, portability, and growing robustness. Here, we relied on EEG signals and a novel information-sharing method to study resting...

Interoception is a complex process encompassing multiple dimensions, such as accuracy, learning and awareness. Here, we examined whether each of those dimensions relies on specialized neural regions distributed throughout the vast interoceptive network. To this end, we obtained relevant measures of cardiac interoception in healthy subjects and pati...

Interoception is a complex process encompassing multiple dimensions, such as accuracy, learning, and awareness. Here we examined whether each of those dimensions relies on specialized neural regions distributed throughout the vast interoceptive network. To this end, we obtained relevant measures of cardiac interoception in healthy subjects and pati...

Desde la descripción inicial efectuada por Pick hace más de un siglo atrás, el interés por las demencias frontotemporales ha tenido un gran crecimiento. Gracias a los avances de las neuroimágenes y el desarrollo de biomarcadores, el progreso en este campo ha generado nuevos conocimientos en torno a la categorización clínica, correlatos neuronales d...

Interoception is a complex process encompassing multiple dimensions, such as accuracy, learning and awareness. Here, we examined whether each of those dimensions relies on specialized neural regions distributed throughout the vast interoceptive network. To this end, we obtained relevant measures of cardiac interoception in healthy subjects and pati...

Interoception is a complex process encompassing multiple dimensions, such as accuracy, learning and awareness. Here, we examined whether each of those dimensions relies on specialized neural regions distributed throughout the vast interoceptive network. To this end, we obtained relevant measures of cardiac interoception in healthy subjects and pati...

Mc Leod neuroacanthocytosis syndrome: a case report

Five years of thrombolysis in a Chilean hospital: leading a local initiative towards a national public health policy

Social cognition in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer disease

Cerebral venous thrombosis: clinical presentation in a Chilean cohort

Brief screening tools that detect and differentiate patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia (ALSFTD) from those more subtle cognitive or behavioral symptoms (ALS plus) and motor symptoms only (ALS pure) is pertinent in a clinical setting. The utility of 2 validated and data-driven tests (Mini-Addenbrooke's Cognitive...

Our objective was to describe amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) mortality rates in the Chilean population over a 17-year period. Chilean death records (1994-2010) were reviewed for the ICD-10 diagnosis G.12.2 (including motor neuron disease and similar conditions), and weighted with population data. Crude and standardized mortality rates by ALS w...

Recent genetic and neuropathologic advances support the concept that frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are overlapping multisystem disorders. While 10-15% of ALS patients fulfil criteria for FTD, features of motor neuron disease appear in approximately 15% of FTD patients, during the evolution of the disease. Thi...

Abstract There is need for a valid, sensitive and short instrument capable of detecting and quantifying behavioural changes in ALS, which can be utilized in clinical and research settings. This study aimed to 1) develop and validate such an instrument; 2) verify the most common behavioural symptoms; and 3) investigate longitudinal changes over a si...

To investigate patient susceptibility to neuropsychiatric symptoms in the context of progression of more classic motor symptoms in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and to examine the impact of neuropsychiatric symptoms on survival. The study cohort consisted of 219 patients with ALS (limb onset = 159; bulbar onset = 60), with neuropsychiatric sy...

Atypical presentations of Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been described, including a " frontal " variant (fvAD), which presents with personality change and executive dysfunction similar to that seen in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). This clinical variation is thought to reflect the regional distribution of pathology, although fe...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a multisystem disease that overlaps with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Although FTD patients exhibit prominent deficits in emotion perception and social cognition, these domains have received relatively little attention in ALS. Moreover, direct comparisons between ALS and FTD on emotion processing tasks remai...

Objective: To characterize the patterns of brain atrophy in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with and without cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms, in comparison to controls and patients with ALS-frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Methods: A total of 57 participants (ALS = 22; ALS-FTD = 17; controls = 18) were included, following...

It is widely known that human exposure to mercury vapor can cause neurological and neuropsychological deterioration. We have investigated if a population of Chilean artisanal gold-mining workers heavily exposed to elemental mercury (Hg0) display neurological and neuropsychological impairment. Male volunteers occupationally exposed to Hg0 (“gold min...

ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) utilize different functional rating scales: the ALSFRS-R assesses physical disability whereas the Frontotemporal Dementia Rating Scale assesses behavioural and functional impairment to produce an index of dementia staging. To better consider the applicability of the FRS in an ALS population, 130 patient-carer d...

Objective: To characterize the patterns of brain atrophy in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with and without cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms, in comparison to controls and patients with ALS–frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Methods: A total of 57 participants (ALS 5 22; ALS-FTD 5 17; controls 5 18) were included, following cu...

Background Behavioral changes in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) mirror those found in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Considering the high rate of neuropsychiatric symptoms found in ALS patients, this paper examines whether caregiver burden is associated with behavioral changes over and above the physical disability of patients wi...

There is increasing evidence that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) lie on a clinical, pathological and genetic continuum with patients of one disease exhibiting features of the other. Nevertheless, to date, the underlying grey matter and white matter changes across the ALS-FTD disease continuum have not been exp...

White matter changes of patients compared to controls. Diffusion tensor imaging analysis showing white matter changes for A) bvFTD vs. controls, B) ALS-FTD vs. controls, and C) ALS vs. controls. Clusters are overlaid on the MNI standard brain (t = 2.41). Coloured voxels show regions that were significant in the analyses for p<0.05 FWE corrected, ex...

Grey matter atrophy of patients compared to controls. Voxel-based morphometry analysis showing brain area atrophy for A) bvFTD vs. controls, B) ALS-FTD vs. controls, and C) ALS vs. controls. Clusters are overlaid on the MNI standard brain (t = 2.41). Coloured voxels show regions that were significant in the analyses for p<0.05 FWE corrected, except...