Clinical Trials

Progressive apraxia of speech and nfvPPA Inclusion Criteria:

• All enrolled subjects must be over the age of 18.
• Must have an informant who will be able to provide independent evaluation of functioning.
• Must speak English as their primary language.
• Bilingual subjects and minorities whose primary language is English will be recruited.
• To be included in the study, subjects must have a chief complaint of progressive impairment of speech or language with evidence of apraxia of speech or agrammatic aphasia in which verbal and/or written output will show evidence of agrammatism.
• Difficulties with verbal comprehension, reading comprehension, writing and naming also may be present.
• In subjects with anomia the target words should be recognized when provided on the majority of items.
• Dysarthria may be present but must be rated as no more than mild.

Healthy Control Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria:

• Healthy controls recruited into this study must be independently functioning and not have any active neurologic or psychiatric conditions and have no cognitive complaints. We will exclude subjects that have past or persistent childhood speech or language disorders and/or learning disabilities.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Subjects will be excluded from the study if MRI is contraindicated as a result of MR unsafe implanted metallic devices, if there is severe claustrophobia, if there are conditions that may confound brain imaging studies (e.g., structural abnormalities, including subdural hematoma or intracranial neoplasm), or if they are medically unstable or are on medications that might affect brain structure or metabolism (e.g., chemotherapy).
• Subjects with concurrent illnesses that could account for speech and language deficits, such as traumatic brain injury, strokes, brain surgery, tumors, or developmental syndromes will be excluded.
• Subjects that are mute or meet criteria for another neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body disease, or the semantic or logopenic variants of primary progressive aphasia, will be excluded.
• Subjects will also be excluded if they do not have an informant, or do not consent to research.
• All women who can become pregnant must have a negative pregnancy test before the PET/CT scan.

Additional exclusion criteria for the C-11 ER176 PET scan:

• Generalized inflammatory condition and treatment with immunosuppressive, corticoid/glucocorticoid, steroidal or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication within 2 weeks of scanning (only acute medication use as an exclusion so as to limit medication interaction but preserve possible chronic systemic inflammation interaction).

Note: Other protocol defined Inclusion/Exclusion criteria may apply.

Eligibility last updated 6/20/23. Questions regarding updates should be directed to the study team contact.