Research Progress On Apathy In Neurodegenerative Disease

Apathy is increasingly recognized as an important behavioral complication that can affect the majority of people with neurodegenerative disease.It can be defined as a syndrome of decreased motivation that manifests as a decrease in goal-directed behaviors.The mechanism of apathy is undetermined,the mainstream opinion is that apathy is caused by prefrontal cortex-basal ganglia circuits damage.Subtypes of apathy depend on which cortex-basal ganglia circuits region is affected,the mechanism associates with the anatomy and neurochemical of related cortical regions and basal ganglia.This article focuses on the anatomy and neurochemical mechanism of apathy in neurodegenerative disease.We also introduce the progression of the definition and treatment of apathy.