The heterogeneity of neurodegenerative diseases is a key confound to disease understanding and treatment development, as study cohorts typically include multiple phenotypes on distinct disease trajectories. 1 key finding →
Design: cross-sectional
Evidence: low
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Although behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is classically defined by behavioral and socio-emotional changes, impairments often extend to other cognitive functions. 2 key findings →
Design: systematic review
Participants: 181
Evidence: high
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The insular cortex is proposed to function as a central brain hub characterized by wide-spread connections and diverse functional roles. 5 key findings →
Design: systematic review
Participants: 2,261
Evidence: high
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Despite improvements in diagnostic criteria for dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), the ability to discriminate DLB from Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias remains suboptimal. 5 key findings →
Design: systematic review
Participants: 43
Evidence: high
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We performed a comprehensive cognitive, neuroimaging, and genetic study of 31 patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a decline in language functions that remains isolated for at least 2 years. 3 key findings →
Participants: 31
Evidence: low
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Comparisons of ADNC in typical amnestic versus atypical aphasic dementia and of TDP in type A versus type C revealed fundamental biological and clinical differences, suggesting that members of each pair may constitute distinct clinicopathologic entities despite identical downstream proteinopathies. 1 key finding →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 68
Evidence: moderate
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Although dopamine replacement therapy remains a core component of Parkinson's disease treatment, the onset of motor fluctuations and dyskinetic movements might require a range of medical and surgical approaches from a multidisciplinary team, and important new approaches in the delivery of dopamine replacement are becoming available. 4 key findings →
Evidence: low
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Our study demonstrates that MRI, a widespread imaging technology, can individually identify bvFTD with high accuracy in multi-center imaging data, paving the road to personalized diagnostic approaches in the future. 2 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Evidence: high
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61/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 61 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2021-06-22
Our results demonstrate that different MAPT mutations give rise to distinct atrophy patterns and clinical phenotype, providing insights into the underlying disease biology and potential utility for patient stratification in therapeutic trials. 3 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Evidence: moderate
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We report the clinical, neuroimaging, and neuropathologic features of progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA), a rare neurodegenerative syndrome most notable for its distinct language disturbance. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Evidence: moderate
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Clinical data alone poorly predicted phenoconversion in RBD due to synucleinopathy patients. 3 key findings →
Participants: 173
Evidence: low
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The results were validated in an independent sample of 610 patients with Parkinson's disease from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Parkinson's Disease Biomarker Program (PDBP). 2 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 423
Evidence: moderate
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Our review identified several measures of speech which may assist with diagnosis and classification, and consolidated the brain-behavior associations relating to speech in FTD, PPA, and progressive apraxia of speech. 1 key finding →
Design: meta-analysis
Evidence: high
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56/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 56 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2000-08-01
Of 173 patients followed for at least 1 year, 50 became demented according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, revised 3rd edition (DSM III-R) criteria (mean follow-up, 3.6 +/- 2. 2 years). 5 key findings →
Participants: 173
Evidence: moderate
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These results suggest that bvFTD may be characterized by an allostatic-interoceptive overload manifested in ongoing electrophysiological markers, brain atrophy, functional networks, and cognition. 4 key findings →
Participants: 94
Evidence: low
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There was no control group, but worsening of akinesia, speech, postural stability, freezing of gait, and cognitive function between the first and the fifth year is consistent with the natural history of Parkinson's disease. 1 key finding →
Evidence: low
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Apathy is a persistent behavioural feature in PD with a high incidence and prevalence over time. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 139
Evidence: moderate
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55/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 55 out of 100.
·
BMJ open
·
2012-06-25
Micrographia was found in nearly half of the PD cohort. 4 key findings →
Design: case-control study
Participants: 68
Evidence: moderate
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We examined longitudinal change in language expression during a semi-structured speech sample in 48 patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) or behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and related this to longitudinal neuroimaging of cortical thickness available in 25 of these patients. 2 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 48
Evidence: moderate
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In the field of neurodegeneration, speech and language assessments are useful for diagnosing aphasic syndromes and for characterizing other disorders. 1 key finding →
Evidence: low
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To develop a simplified smell test for identifying patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), we reevaluated the Sniffin'-Sticks-Identification-Test (SST-ID) and University-of-Pennsylvania-Smell-Identification-Test (UPSIT), using three case-control studies. 1 key finding →
Design: case-control study
Participants: 301
Evidence: moderate
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In DLB, α-synuclein is an important predictor of disease duration, both independently and synergistically with tau and Aβ. 2 key findings →
Participants: 49
Evidence: low
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However, the largest study to date found nortriptyline therapy to be efficacious compared with placebo, whereas paroxetine controlled release was not. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 148
Evidence: high
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Prospective studies have shown that although the beneficial effects of this procedure are maintained at 5 years, axial motor features and cognitive decline may occur in the long term after the implants. 5 key findings →
Evidence: low
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52/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 52 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2005-04-01
The temporal variant of frontotemporal dementia follows a characteristic cognitive and behavioral progression that suggests early spread from one anterior temporal lobe to the other. 2 key findings →
Evidence: low
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How the 0–100 score works — and why some entries are capped
This is alzhub's own score. It is not an official metric, not an impact factor,
and no journal, publisher or ranking body endorses it. We built it so that a reader who is not a
scientist can tell a landmark trial from a conference abstract without having to already know the
difference. Every point comes from one of 20 components, all of them printed on the study itself,
so you can disagree with our arithmetic rather than having to trust the total.
- Journal tier up to 10 pts
- Journal's citation record up to 4 pts
- Study design up to 12 pts
- Strength of evidence up to 5 pts
- Peer-review validation up to 10 pts
- How recent up to 5 pts
- Sample size up to 4 pts
- Effect reported up to 3 pts
- Studied in people up to 3 pts
- Randomised / blinded up to 2 pts
- Times cited up to 7 pts
- Citations per year up to 5 pts
- Impact for its field and year up to 6 pts
- Cited by studies here up to 6 pts
- Still being cited up to 4 pts
- Senior author's track record up to 4 pts
- Institution's track record up to 3 pts
- Multi-centre collaboration up to 3 pts
- Indexed in PubMed up to 2 pts
- Free to read up to 2 pts
Journals are placed in ordered tiers, never given a numeric impact factor — we
could not verify current impact factors from a source we control, and an invented one would be
worse than none. Tier 1 is the top-tier general journals (NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature, Science,
Nature Medicine); tier 2 is the leading specialty journals; tier 3 is every other peer-reviewed
journal. A separate part scores how much the journal's own papers are cited, which tells the
tier-3 journals apart.
Two rules we don't bend. First, we never fill in a
missing value: if a record does not state a sample size or a design, that component scores
zero, and if we simply have no data for a part, such as a citation count, that part is left out and
the study is scored on the parts we could check. The study card says which. Second, anything that is not a peer-reviewed
article is capped at 16/100 and carries a warning chip — so a conference abstract or
a company press release can never outrank a peer-reviewed paper, no matter how good it looks.
We rank a rigorous null result — a good trial showing that something does not
work — above an early positive finding. Someone deciding whether to buy a supplement is served by
that, and the rigour is already counted by the design and journal components.
The score is computed from the published data alone and is
reproducible: the same file always yields the same numbers.
See the whole rubric drawn out →
— four charts covering all 27,380 studies: how the scores are spread and where the cap
bites, which of the 20 components the library is strong and weak on, which subjects rest on
stronger evidence, and what kinds of study each subject is actually built from.