The Claustrum and Alzheimer’s Disease

The quotation above anticipates that loss of the proposed integrative functions of the claustrum might cause distinctive cognitive dysfunctions. Disconnection and degeneration of this structure might then contribute to cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms including those appearing in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). That the claustrum is important for at least some elements of the neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric syndromes of AD, and probably other dementias, is supported not only by its connections but also by neuropathological and in vivo neuroimaging correlative studies. Reported changes in claustral activity in neuroimaging studies are frequent, but largely little remarked upon and discussed. In this chapter the very limited literature about the claustrum in AD will be reviewed, and some speculative inferences about claustral dysfunction made in the context of the neuropathological progression of AD, and what is known about the wider relationship of regional and network brain dysfunction to the neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric manifestations of the disease. C H A P T E R