Apathy in corticobasal degeneration: possible parietal involvement

Corticobasal degeneration is a rare disorder, which usually consists of a combination of complex movement disorders, apraxia and cortical changes. Its definition is still evolving and in 2013 an international consortium tried to develop new criteria, based on a systematic literature review. Over a long period of time, we carefully selected 23 patients who fulfilled the criteria for a diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration; all had the so-called corticobasal syndrome phenotype, in accordance with Armstrong et al. (2013). Through a dedicated study, we set out to study behavioral alterations, specifically apathy, and to compare the results obtained with those deriving from a well-defined Parkinson’s disease population. On the basis of our limited but specific results, we argue for a possible role of the parietal neural networks as a determinant of apathy, and provide an overview of emerging data in the imaging and pathology literature.