| 1. |
- Cumplido-Mayoral, I., et al.
(författare)
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Biological brain age prediction using machine learning on structural neuroimaging data: Multi-cohort validation against biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease and neurodegeneration stratified by sex
- 2023
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Ingår i: Elife. - 2050-084X. ; 12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Brain--age can be inferred from structural neuroimaging and compared to chronological age (brain--age delta) as a marker of biological brain aging. Accelerated aging has been found in neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease (AD), but its validation against markers of neurodegeneration and AD is lacking. Here, imaging--derived measures from the UK Biobank dataset (N=22,661) were used to predict brain--age in 2,314 cognitively unimpaired (CU) individuals at higher risk of AD and mild cognitive impaired (MCI) patients from four independent cohorts with available biomarker data: ALFA+, ADNI, EPAD, and OASIS. Brain-age delta was associated with abnormal amyloid-ss, more advanced stages (AT) of AD pathology and APOE-e4 status. Brain--age delta was positively associated with plasma neurofilament light, a marker of neurodegeneration, and sex differences in the brain effects of this marker were found. These results validate brain--age delta as a non-invasive marker of biological brain aging in non--demented individuals with abnormal levels of biomarkers of AD and axonal injury.
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| 2. |
- Mander, B. A., et al.
(författare)
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Inflammation, tau pathology, and synaptic integrity associated with sleep spindles and memory prior to beta-amyloid positivity
- 2022
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Ingår i: Sleep. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0161-8105 .- 1550-9109. ; 45:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Study Objectives Fast frequency sleep spindles are reduced in aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the mechanisms and functional relevance of these deficits remain unclear. The study objective was to identify AD biomarkers associated with fast sleep spindle deficits in cognitively unimpaired older adults at risk for AD. Methods Fifty-eight cognitively unimpaired, beta-amyloid-negative, older adults (mean +/- SD; 61.4 +/- 6.3 years, 38 female) enriched with parental history of AD (77.6%) and apolipoprotein E (APOE) epsilon 4 positivity (25.9%) completed the study. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of central nervous system inflammation, beta-amyloid and tau proteins, and neurodegeneration were combined with polysomnography (PSG) using high-density electroencephalography and assessment of overnight memory retention. Parallelized serial mediation models were used to assess indirect effects of age on fast frequency (13 to <16Hz) sleep spindle measures through these AD biomarkers. Results Glial activation was associated with prefrontal fast frequency sleep spindle expression deficits. While adjusting for sex, APOE epsilon 4 genotype, apnea-hypopnea index, and time between CSF sampling and sleep study, serial mediation models detected indirect effects of age on fast sleep spindle expression through microglial activation markers and then tau phosphorylation and synaptic degeneration markers. Sleep spindle expression at these electrodes was also associated with overnight memory retention in multiple regression models adjusting for covariates. Conclusions These findings point toward microglia dysfunction as associated with tau phosphorylation, synaptic loss, sleep spindle deficits, and memory impairment even prior to beta-amyloid positivity, thus offering a promising candidate therapeutic target to arrest cognitive decline associated with aging and AD.
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| 3. |
- Rodriguez-Fernandez, B., et al.
(författare)
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Genetically predicted telomere length and Alzheimer's disease endophenotypes: a Mendelian randomization study
- 2022
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Ingår i: Alzheimers Research & Therapy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1758-9193. ; 14:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Telomere length (TL) is associated with biological aging, consequently influencing the risk of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). We aimed to evaluate the potential causal role of TL in AD endophenotypes (i.e., cognitive performance, N = 2233; brain age and AD-related signatures, N = 1134; and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers (CSF) of AD and neurodegeneration, N = 304) through a Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. Our analysis was conducted in the context of the ALFA (ALzheimer and FAmilies) study, a population of cognitively healthy individuals at risk of AD. A total of 20 single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with TL were used to determine the effect of TL on AD endophenotypes. Analyses were adjusted by age, sex, and years of education. Stratified analyses by APOE-epsilon 4 status and polygenic risk score of AD were conducted. MR analysis revealed significant associations between genetically predicted longer TL and lower levels of CSF A beta and higher levels of CSF NfL only in APOE-epsilon 4 non-carriers. Moreover, inheriting longer TL was associated with greater cortical thickness in age and AD-related brain signatures and lower levels of CSF p-tau among individuals at a high genetic predisposition to AD. Further observational analyses are warranted to better understand these associations.
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| 4. |
- Akinci, M., et al.
(författare)
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Prepandemic Alzheimer Disease Biomarkers and Anxious-Depressive Symptoms During the COVID-19 Confinement in Cognitively Unimpaired Adults
- 2022
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Ingår i: NEUROLOGY. - : Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). - 0028-3878 .- 1526-632X. ; 99:14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background and Objectives Increased anxious-depressive symptomatology is observed in the preclinical stage of Alzheimer disease (AD), which may accelerate disease progression. We investigated whether beta-amyloid, cortical thickness in medial temporal lobe structures, neuroinflammation, and sociodemographic factors were associated with greater anxious-depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 confinement. Methods This retrospective observational study included cognitively unimpaired older adults from the Alzheimer's and Families cohort, the majority with a family history of sporadic AD. Participants performed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) during the COVID-19 confinement. A subset had available retrospective (on average: 2.4 years before) HADS assessment, amyloid [F-18] flutemetamol PET and structural MRI scans, and CSF markers of neuroinflammation (interleukin-6 [IL-6], triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2, and glial fibrillary acidic protein levels). We performed multivariable linear regression models to investigate the associations of prepandemic AD-related biomarkers and sociodemographic factors with HADS scores during the confinement. We further performed an analysis of covariance to adjust by participants' prepandemic anxiety-depression levels. Finally, we explored the role of stress and lifestyle changes (sleep patterns, eating, drinking, smoking habits, and medication use) on the tested associations and performed sex-stratified analyses. Results We included 921 (254 with AD biomarkers) participants. beta-amyloid positivity (B = 3.73; 95% CI = 1.1 to 6.36; p = 0.006), caregiving (B = 1.37; 95% CI 0.24-2.5; p = 0.018), sex (women: B = 1.95; 95% CI 1.1-2.79; p < 0.001), younger age (B = -0.12; 95% CI -0.18 to -0.052; p < 0.001), and lower education (B = -0.16; 95% CI -0.28 to -0.042; p = 0.008) were associated with greater anxious-depressive symptoms during the confinement. Considering prepandemic anxiety-depression levels, we further observed an association between lower levels of CSF IL-6 (B = -5.11; 95% CI -10.1 to -0.13; p = 0.044) and greater HADS scores. The results were independent of stress-related variables and lifestyle changes. Stratified analysis revealed that the associations were mainly driven by women. Discussion Our results link AD-related pathophysiology and neuroinflammation with greater anxious-depressive symptomatology during the COVID-19-related confinement, notably in women. AD pathophysiology may increase neuropsychiatric symptomatology in response to stressors. This association may imply a worse clinical prognosis in people at risk for AD after the pandemic and thus deserves to be considered by clinicians.
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| 5. |
- Bruno, D., et al.
(författare)
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The recency ratio assessed by story recall is associated with cerebrospinal fluid levels of neurodegeneration biomarkers
- 2023
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Ingår i: Cortex. - : Elsevier BV. - 0010-9452. ; 159, s. 167-174
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recency refers to the information learned at the end of a study list or task. Recency forgetting, as tracked by the ratio between recency recall in immediate and delayed con-ditions, i.e., the recency ratio (Rr), has been applied to list-learning tasks, demonstrating its efficacy in predicting cognitive decline, conversion to mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of neurodegeneration. However, little is known as to whether Rr can be effectively applied to story recall tasks. To address this question, data were extracted from the database of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the Uni-versity of Wisconsin -Madison. A total of 212 participants were included in the study. CSF biomarkers were amyloid-beta (Ab) 40 and 42, phosphorylated (p) and total (t) tau, neu-rofilament light (NFL), neurogranin (Ng), and a-synuclein (a-syn). Story Recall was measured with the Logical Memory Test (LMT). We carried out Bayesian regression ana-lyses with Rr, and other LMT scores as predictors; and CSF biomarkers (including the Ab42/ 40 and p-tau/Ab42 ratios) as outcomes. Results showed that models including Rr consis-tently provided best fits with the data, with few exceptions. These findings demonstrate the applicability of Rr to story recall and its sensitivity to CSF biomarkers of neuro-degeneration, and encourage its inclusion when evaluating risk of neurodegeneration with story recall. (c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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| 6. |
- Cacciaglia, R., et al.
(författare)
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Age, sex and APOE-epsilon 4 modify the balance between soluble and fibrillar beta-amyloid in non-demented individuals: topographical patterns across two independent cohorts
- 2022
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Ingår i: Molecular Psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1359-4184 .- 1476-5578. ; 27, s. 2010-2018
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Amyloid (A beta) pathology is the earliest detectable pathophysiological event along the Alzheimer's continuum, which can be measured both in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and by Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Yet, these biomarkers identify two distinct A beta pools, reflecting the clearance of soluble A beta as opposed to the presence of A beta fibrils in the brain. An open question is whether risk factors known to increase Alzheimer's' disease (AD) prevalence may promote an imbalance between soluble and deposited A beta. Unveiling such interactions shall aid our understanding of the biological pathways underlying A beta deposition and foster the design of effective prevention strategies. We assessed the impact of three major AD risk factors, such as age, APOE-epsilon 4 and female sex, on the association between CSF and PET A beta, in two independent samples of non-demented individuals (ALFA: n = 320, ADNI: n = 682). We tested our hypotheses both in candidate regions of interest and in the whole brain using voxel-wise non-parametric permutations. All of the assessed risk factors induced a higher A beta deposition for any given level of CSF A beta 42/40, although in distinct cerebral topologies. While age and sex mapped onto neocortical areas, the effect of APOE-epsilon 4 was prominent in the medial temporal lobe, which represents a target of early tau deposition. Further, we found that the effects of age and APOE-epsilon 4 was stronger in women than in men. Our data indicate that specific AD risk factors affect the spatial patterns of cerebral A beta aggregation, with APOE-epsilon 4 possibly facilitating a co-localization between A beta and tau along the disease continuum.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Cacciaglia, R, et al.
(författare)
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Age, sex and APOE-ε4 modify the balance between soluble and fibrillar β-amyloid in non-demented individuals: topographical patterns across two independent cohorts
- 2022
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Ingår i: Molecular psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-5578 .- 1359-4184. ; 27:4, s. 2010-2018
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Amyloid (Aβ) pathology is the earliest detectable pathophysiological event along the Alzheimer’s continuum, which can be measured both in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and by Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Yet, these biomarkers identify two distinct Aβ pools, reflecting the clearance of soluble Aβ as opposed to the presence of Aβ fibrils in the brain. An open question is whether risk factors known to increase Alzheimer’s’ disease (AD) prevalence may promote an imbalance between soluble and deposited Aβ. Unveiling such interactions shall aid our understanding of the biological pathways underlying Aβ deposition and foster the design of effective prevention strategies. We assessed the impact of three major AD risk factors, such as age, APOE-ε4 and female sex, on the association between CSF and PET Aβ, in two independent samples of non-demented individuals (ALFA: n = 320, ADNI: n = 682). We tested our hypotheses both in candidate regions of interest and in the whole brain using voxel-wise non-parametric permutations. All of the assessed risk factors induced a higher Aβ deposition for any given level of CSF Aβ42/40, although in distinct cerebral topologies. While age and sex mapped onto neocortical areas, the effect of APOE-ε4 was prominent in the medial temporal lobe, which represents a target of early tau deposition. Further, we found that the effects of age and APOE-ε4 was stronger in women than in men. Our data indicate that specific AD risk factors affect the spatial patterns of cerebral Aβ aggregation, with APOE-ε4 possibly facilitating a co-localization between Aβ and tau along the disease continuum.
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| 9. |
- Cullen, Nicholas C., et al.
(författare)
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Test-retest variability of plasma biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease and its effects on clinical prediction models
- 2023
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Ingår i: Alzheimers & Dementia. - : Wiley. - 1552-5260 .- 1552-5279. ; 19:3, s. 797-806
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- INTRODUCTION The effect of random error on the performance of blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) must be determined before clinical implementation. METHODS We measured test-retest variability of plasma amyloid beta (A beta)42/A beta 40, neurofilament light (NfL), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and phosphorylated tau (p-tau)217 and simulated effects of this variability on biomarker performance when predicting either cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) A beta status or conversion to AD dementia in 399 non-demented participants with cognitive symptoms. RESULTS Clinical performance was highest when combining all biomarkers. Among single-biomarkers, p-tau217 performed best. Test-retest variability ranged from 4.1% (A beta 42/A beta 40) to 25% (GFAP). This variability reduced the performance of the biomarkers (approximate to Delta AUC [area under the curve] -1% to -4%) with the least effects on models with p-tau217. The percent of individuals with unstable predicted outcomes was lowest for the multi-biomarker combination (14%). DISCUSSION Clinical prediction models combining plasma biomarkers-particularly p-tau217-exhibit high performance and are less effected by random error. Individuals with unstable predicted outcomes ("gray zone") should be recommended for further tests.
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| 10. |
- Deming, Y., et al.
(författare)
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Neuropathology-based APOE genetic risk score better quantifies Alzheimer's risk
- 2023
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Ingår i: Alzheimers & Dementia. - : Wiley. - 1552-5260 .- 1552-5279. ; 19:8, s. 3406-3416
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- IntroductionApolipoprotein E (APOE) epsilon 4-carrier status or epsilon 4 allele count are included in analyses to account for the APOE genetic effect on Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, this does not account for protective effects of APOE epsilon 2 or heterogeneous effect of epsilon 2, epsilon 3, and epsilon 4 haplotypes. MethodsWe leveraged results from an autopsy-confirmed AD study to generate a weighted risk score for APOE (APOE-npscore). We regressed cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid and tau biomarkers on APOE variables from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention (WRAP), Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (WADRC), and Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). ResultsThe APOE-npscore explained more variance and provided a better model fit for all three CSF measures than APOE epsilon 4-carrier status and epsilon 4 allele count. These findings were replicated in ADNI and observed in subsets of cognitively unimpaired (CU) participants. DiscussionThe APOE-npscore reflects the genetic effect on neuropathology and provides an improved method to account for APOE in AD-related analyses.
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