Recent advances in dementia research in Japan: non-Alzheimer-type degenerative dementias

In this article, we review recent reports by Japanese researchers on non-Alzheimer-type degenerative dementias. These dementias can be classified into the following subtypes: dementias with Lewy bodies, including diffuse Lewy body disease, dementias with neurofibrillary tangles, dementias with glial tangles, including progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal degeneration, argyrophilic grain dementia, frontotemporal dementias including Pick's disease; dementias with degeneration of subcortical nuclei, including Huntington's disease and, last, unclassified dementias. Recently, these various forms of dementia have received much attention in Japan, as elsewhere.