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Tau burden is associated with cross-sectional and longitudinal neurodegeneration in the medial temporal lobe in cognitively normal individuals

Xie, Long ; Wisse, Laura E.M. LU orcid ; Das, Sandhitsu R. ; Lyu, Xueying ; de Flores, Robin ; Yushkevich, Paul A. and Wolk, David A. (2022) In Alzheimer's and Dementia 18(S1).
Abstract

Background: Neurofibrillary tangle pathology is thought to drive neurodegeneration in beta-amyloid positive (A+) cognitively normal (CN) individuals, i.e., preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD).However, in beta-amyloid negative (A-) CN, the contribution of tau pathology [primary age-related tauopathy (PART)] to neurodegeneration remains uncertain. We investigate the correlation between tau burden measured by PET in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and MRI-derived cross-sectional and longitudinal structural atrophy in these cohorts. Methods: 420 CN (A-/A+: 294/101, Table 1) individuals from ADNI with AV1451 PET and T1-weighted MRI acquired within one year were included. Bilateral anterior/posterior hippocampal volume and thickness of... (More)

Background: Neurofibrillary tangle pathology is thought to drive neurodegeneration in beta-amyloid positive (A+) cognitively normal (CN) individuals, i.e., preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD).However, in beta-amyloid negative (A-) CN, the contribution of tau pathology [primary age-related tauopathy (PART)] to neurodegeneration remains uncertain. We investigate the correlation between tau burden measured by PET in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and MRI-derived cross-sectional and longitudinal structural atrophy in these cohorts. Methods: 420 CN (A-/A+: 294/101, Table 1) individuals from ADNI with AV1451 PET and T1-weighted MRI acquired within one year were included. Bilateral anterior/posterior hippocampal volume and thickness of entorhinal cortex (ERC), Brodmann areas 35/36 (BA35/BA36) and parahipocampal cortex (PHC) were obtained from baseline MRI scans. Bilateral MTL tau burden was computed as AV1451 uptake across ERC and BA35. Beta-amyloid status was determined with PET by standard cut-offs (Florbetapir: 1.11; Florbetaben: 1.08). In a subset of participants with prospective longitudinal MRI scans (up to 4.5 years), annualized volume change rate of each MTL subregion was estimated. Intracranial volume and MRI follow-up time were additional covariates for cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis respectively. We performed the analysis separately for each hemisphere in the whole CN cohort and its A+ and A- subgroups. Results: Tau burden was significantly associated with cross-sectional left BA35/36 thickness in the whole cohort and bilateral volume in both A+ CN and the whole cohort (Table 2, Figure 1), but not in in A- CN. Stronger correlations between MTL tau burden and longitudinal atrophy, despite smaller sample size, was observed in almost all the MTL subregions regardless of amyloid status (Table 3, Figure 1). In general, effects from the left hemisphere were stronger than those from the right hemisphere. All significant correlations were maintained when corrected for beta-amyloid PET SUVR. Conclusions: The results demonstrated that elevated tau predicts subsequent neurodegeneration in early Braak regions in CN subjects regardless of amyloid status. This indicates that PART may be an important driver of neurodegeneration already during normal ageing in cognitively normal individuals.

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author
; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Alzheimer's and Dementia
volume
18
issue
S1
article number
e067095
publisher
Wiley
external identifiers
  • scopus:85144387144
ISSN
1552-5260
DOI
10.1002/alz.067095
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
494512d7-70b6-4520-88da-f02160df4807
date added to LUP
2023-01-13 08:53:32
date last changed
2024-02-18 12:21:29
@misc{494512d7-70b6-4520-88da-f02160df4807,
  abstract     = {{<p>Background: Neurofibrillary tangle pathology is thought to drive neurodegeneration in beta-amyloid positive (A+) cognitively normal (CN) individuals, i.e., preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD).However, in beta-amyloid negative (A-) CN, the contribution of tau pathology [primary age-related tauopathy (PART)] to neurodegeneration remains uncertain. We investigate the correlation between tau burden measured by PET in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and MRI-derived cross-sectional and longitudinal structural atrophy in these cohorts. Methods: 420 CN (A-/A+: 294/101, Table 1) individuals from ADNI with AV1451 PET and T1-weighted MRI acquired within one year were included. Bilateral anterior/posterior hippocampal volume and thickness of entorhinal cortex (ERC), Brodmann areas 35/36 (BA35/BA36) and parahipocampal cortex (PHC) were obtained from baseline MRI scans. Bilateral MTL tau burden was computed as AV1451 uptake across ERC and BA35. Beta-amyloid status was determined with PET by standard cut-offs (Florbetapir: 1.11; Florbetaben: 1.08). In a subset of participants with prospective longitudinal MRI scans (up to 4.5 years), annualized volume change rate of each MTL subregion was estimated. Intracranial volume and MRI follow-up time were additional covariates for cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis respectively. We performed the analysis separately for each hemisphere in the whole CN cohort and its A+ and A- subgroups. Results: Tau burden was significantly associated with cross-sectional left BA35/36 thickness in the whole cohort and bilateral volume in both A+ CN and the whole cohort (Table 2, Figure 1), but not in in A- CN. Stronger correlations between MTL tau burden and longitudinal atrophy, despite smaller sample size, was observed in almost all the MTL subregions regardless of amyloid status (Table 3, Figure 1). In general, effects from the left hemisphere were stronger than those from the right hemisphere. All significant correlations were maintained when corrected for beta-amyloid PET SUVR. Conclusions: The results demonstrated that elevated tau predicts subsequent neurodegeneration in early Braak regions in CN subjects regardless of amyloid status. This indicates that PART may be an important driver of neurodegeneration already during normal ageing in cognitively normal individuals.</p>}},
  author       = {{Xie, Long and Wisse, Laura E.M. and Das, Sandhitsu R. and Lyu, Xueying and de Flores, Robin and Yushkevich, Paul A. and Wolk, David A.}},
  issn         = {{1552-5260}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{S1}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley}},
  series       = {{Alzheimer's and Dementia}},
  title        = {{Tau burden is associated with cross-sectional and longitudinal neurodegeneration in the medial temporal lobe in cognitively normal individuals}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/alz.067095}},
  doi          = {{10.1002/alz.067095}},
  volume       = {{18}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}