Dement Neurocogn Disord.  2012 Dec;11(4):141-145. 10.12779/dnd.2012.11.4.141.

Anatomical Correlates of Interlocking Pentagon Drawing

• Lee ES
• Hong YJ
• Yoon B
• Lim SC
• Shim YS
• Ahn KJ
• Cho AH
• Yang DW

• KMID: 2052198
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.12779/dnd.2012.11.4.141

Abstract

BACKGROUND
The interlocking pentagon drawing test, a part of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), is a widely used clinical practice to measure visuoconstructional ability of dementia patients. We investigated the anatomical structures of brain associated with pentagon drawing in subjects with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) by using voxel-based morphometry (VBM).
METHODS
Medical records of forty-four AD patients were reviewed and a 1.5 T SPGR 3D image data were used for VBM analysis. A voxel-based multiple regression analysis was used to investigate correlation between gray matter loss and pentagon drawing performance of AD patients. The correlations between pentagon drawing score and MMSE score were evaluated by Spearman correlation analysis.
RESULTS
There was a positive correlation between the interlocking pentagon copying scores and the MMSE scores (r=0.448, p=0.002). The lower the scores of interlocking pentagon copying were, the more severe the atrophy of right inferior frontal gyrus became ([x, y, z]=[52, 39, 3], Broadmann area 45, and z score=3.86).
CONCLUSIONS
The performance of interlocking pentagon drawing is associated with a general cognitive function in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease. It is also associated with the atrophy of the right inferior frontal gyrus.

Keyword

Interlocking pentagon drawing; Right inferior frontal gyrus; Voxel-based morphometry; Alzheimer's disease

MeSH Terms

Alzheimer Disease
Atrophy
Brain
Coat Protein Complex I
Dementia
Humans
Medical Records
Coat Protein Complex I

Figure

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  Fig. 1 The result of voxel-based regression analysis. A pentagon drawing score was positively correlated with cortical atrophy in the right inferior temporal gyrus (p<0.001, uncorrected for multiple comparisons, extent threshold=100 voxels).

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