UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Tau pathology as determinant of changes in atrophy and cerebral blood flow: a multi-modal longitudinal imaging study

Visser, Denise; Verfaillie, Sander CJ; Bosch, Iris; Brouwer, Iman; Tuncel, Hayel; Coomans, Emma M; Rikken, Roos M; ... Ossenkoppele, Rik; + view all (2023) Tau pathology as determinant of changes in atrophy and cerebral blood flow: a multi-modal longitudinal imaging study. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 10.1007/s00259-023-06196-2. (In press). Green open access

[thumbnail of Barkhof_s00259-023-06196-2.pdf]
Preview
Text
Barkhof_s00259-023-06196-2.pdf

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

PURPOSE: Tau pathology is associated with concurrent atrophy and decreased cerebral blood flow (CBF) in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but less is known about their temporal relationships. Our aim was therefore to investigate the association of concurrent and longitudinal tau PET with longitudinal changes in atrophy and relative CBF. METHODS: We included 61 individuals from the Amsterdam Dementia Cohort (mean age 65.1 ± 7.5 years, 44% female, 57% amyloid-β positive [Aβ +], 26 cognitively impaired [CI]) who underwent dynamic [18F]flortaucipir PET and structural MRI at baseline and 25 ± 5 months follow-up. In addition, we included 86 individuals (68 CI) who only underwent baseline dynamic [18F]flortaucipir PET and MRI scans to increase power in our statistical models. We obtained [18F]flortaucipir PET binding potential (BPND) and R1 values reflecting tau load and relative CBF, respectively, and computed cortical thickness from the structural MRI scans using FreeSurfer. We assessed the regional associations between i) baseline and ii) annual change in tau PET BPND in Braak I, III/IV, and V/VI regions and cortical thickness or R1 in cortical gray matter regions (spanning the whole brain) over time using linear mixed models with random intercepts adjusted for age, sex, time between baseline and follow-up assessments, and baseline BPND in case of analyses with annual change as determinant. All analyses were performed in Aβ-  cognitively normal (CN) individuals and Aβ+  (CN and CI) individuals separately. RESULTS: In Aβ+ individuals, greater baseline Braak III/IV and V/VI tau PET binding was associated with faster cortical thinning in primarily frontotemporal regions. Annual changes in tau PET were not associated with cortical thinning over time in either Aβ+ or Aβ-  individuals. Baseline tau PET was not associated with longitudinal changes in relative CBF, but increases in Braak III/IV tau PET over time were associated with increases in parietal relative CBF over time in Aβ + individuals. CONCLUSION: We showed that higher tau load was related to accelerated cortical thinning, but not to decreases in relative CBF. Moreover, tau PET load at baseline was a stronger predictor of cortical thinning than change of tau PET signal.

Type: Article
Title: Tau pathology as determinant of changes in atrophy and cerebral blood flow: a multi-modal longitudinal imaging study
Location: Germany
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1007/s00259-023-06196-2
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-023-06196-2
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, Atrophy, Cerebral blood flow, Longitudinal, Tau PET
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Brain Repair and Rehabilitation
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10167718
Downloads since deposit
19Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item