Cerebrospinal fluid tissue transglutaminase in vascular dementia

The enzyme tissue transglutaminase (tTG), an indicator of acute cell death, is found in brains of Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease patients. tTG, as a specific marker for apoptosis, may therefore be a powerful biochemical marker of the acute degenerating process in vivo and may be useful in discrimination between vascular dementia (VaD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). It may serve as completion of CSF analysis in diagnosis of dementing disorders and be a simple way of assessing the efficacy of possible new anti-apoptotic drugs.