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Updated: Jun 11, 2026

Using Retinal Imaging to Study Dementia
Published on: November 6, 2017
Visual hallucinations and HLA class II antigens in cortical dementia
Estrella Gómez-Tortosa1, Miriam Aguerri, M José Sainz
1Department of Neurology, Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Madrid, Spain. egomezt@fjd.es
Background:
Visual hallucinations are a core feature of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and have been proposed as being part of a narcolepsy-like REM sleep disorder. Selective loss of hypothalamic hypocretin-producing neurons is common to both narcolepsy and the spectrum of Lewy body diseases. We hypothesized that the genetic marker associated with narcolepsy, the HLA class II DR2-DQ6 haplotype, could confer some degree of susceptibility to brainstem-hypothalamic damage leading to the manifestation of visual hallucinations.
Methods:
We examined HLA class II haplotypes in 30 patients with prominent visual hallucinations in the context of clinical criteria for DLB and in 30 patients affected by a cortical-type dementia without hallucinations.
Results:
No significant differences were found in the distribution of DR and DQ antigens.
Conclusions:
We conclude that hypothalamic vulnerability in different diseases is not mediated by a common HLA haplotype.
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