Manic behavior and asymmetric right frontotemporal dementia from a novel progranulin mutation

Abstract

Mario F Mendez1–3 1Department of Neurology, 2Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 3Neurology Service, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, USA Abstract: Studies suggest a relationship of manic behavior and bipolar disorder (BD) with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). The nature of this relationship is unclear. This report presents a patient with initial manic behavior as the main manifestation of familial bvFTD from a novel progranulin (GRN) mutation. In contrast, there are other reports of a long background of BD preceding a diagnosis of bvFTD. A review of the literature and this patient suggest that manic symptoms result from damage to right frontotemporal neural structures from longstanding BD, as well as from bvFTD and other focal neurological disorders. In addition, there is a subgroup of patients with a probable genetic predisposition to both BD and bvFTD. Keywords: frontotemporal dementia, mania, bipolar disorder, progranulin mutation

Keywords

• Frontotemporal dementia
• mania
• bipolar disorder
• progranulin mutation