Does inflammation precede tau aggregation in early Alzheimer's disease? A PET study.

Does inflammation precede tau aggregation in early Alzheimer's disease? A PET study.
Neurobiol Dis. 2018 Jun 11;:
Authors: Parbo P, Ismail R, Sommerauer M, Stokholm MG, Hansen AK, Hansen KV, Amidi A, Schaldemose JL, Gottrup H, Brændgaard H, Eskildsen SF, Borghammer P, Hinz R, Aanerud J, Brooks DJ
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to assess with positron emission tomography (PET) the temporal and spatial inter-relationships between levels of cortical microglial activation and the aggregated amyloid-β and tau load in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer's disease (AD).
METHODS: Six clinically probable AD and 20 MCI subjects had inflammation (11C-(R)-PK11195), amyloid (11C-PiB) and tau (18F-flortaucipir) PET, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a neuropsychological assessment. Parametric images of tracer binding were interrogated at a voxel level and by region of interest analyses.
RESULTS: 55% of MCI and 83% of AD subjects had a high amyloid-β load. We have previously reported that clusters of correlated amyloid and inflammation levels are present in cortex. Here we found no correlation between levels of inflammation (11C-(R)-PK11195 BPND) and tau (18F-flortaucipir SUVR) or MMSE scores in high amyloid-β cases.
INTERPRETATION: While correlated levels of amyloid-β and inflammation can be seen in MCI, we did not detect an association between levels of cortical tau tangles and inflammation in our ...

Source: Neurobiology of Disease - June 11, 2018 Category: Neurology Authors: Parbo P, Ismail R, Sommerauer M, Stokholm MG, Hansen AK, Hansen KV, Amidi A, Schaldemose JL, Gottrup H, Brændgaard H, Eskildsen SF, Borghammer P, Hinz R, Aanerud J, Brooks DJ Tags: Neurobiol Dis Source Type: research