[Several characteristic senile dementia morphologic changes in the brain and their corresponding neuropsychological...

A pathohistological study of the brain in 23 cases of senile dementia detected that the loss of a significant amount of neurons of the II and III layers in the cortex of the frontal and occipital lobes was accompanied by foci of destruction in the knee and intumescentia of the corpus callosum as well as by a destruction of the long associative connections in the fascicles, connecting the frontal and occipital lobes of the same hemisphere. Such phenomena were not found in normal individuals of old age nor in mental patients with other diseases. A neuropsychological study of 21 patients with senile dementia demonstrated that a lesion of these brain structures may correspond to dynamical apraxia, visual agnosis and a disturbance of bimanuel reciprocal coordination.