Browsing by Author "Xiong, Chengjie"
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Item Awareness of Genetic Risk in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN)(Wiley, 2020-01) Aschenbrenner, Andrew J.; James, Bryan D.; McDade, Eric; Wang, Guoqiao; Lim, Yen Ying; Benzinger, Tammie L.S.; Cruchaga, Carlos; Goate, Alison; Xiong, Chengjie; Perrin, Richard; Buckles, Virginia; Allegri, Ricardo; Berman, Sarah B.; Chhatwal, Jasmeer P.; Fagan, Anne; Farlow, Martin; O'Connor, Antoinette; Ghetti, Bernardino; Graff-Radford, Neill; Goldman, Jill; Gräber, Susanne; Karch, Celeste M.; Lee, Jae-Hong; Levin, Johannes; Martins, Ralph N.; Masters, Colin; Mori, Hiroshi; Noble, James; Salloway, Stephen; Schofield, Peter; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall J.; Hassenstab, Jason; Neurology, School of MedicineIntroduction: Although some members of families with autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease mutations learn their mutation status, most do not. How knowledge of mutation status affects clinical disease progression is unknown. This study quantifies the influence of mutation awareness on clinical symptoms, cognition, and biomarkers. Methods: Mutation carriers and non-carriers from the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) were stratified based on knowledge of mutation status. Rates of change on standard clinical, cognitive, and neuroimaging outcomes were examined. Results: Mutation knowledge had no associations with cognitive decline, clinical progression, amyloid deposition, hippocampal volume, or depression in either carriers or non-carriers. Carriers who learned their status mid-study had slightly higher levels of depression and lower cognitive scores. Discussion: Knowledge of mutation status does not affect rates of change on any measured outcome. Learning of status mid-study may confer short-term changes in cognitive functioning, or changes in cognition may influence the determination of mutation status.Item Cerebral amyloidosis associated with cognitive decline in autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease(American Academy of Neurology, 2015-09) Wang, Fen; Gordon, Brian A.; Ryman, Davis C.; Ma, Shengmei; Xiong, Chengjie; Hassenstab, Jason; Goate, Alison; Fagan, Anne M.; Cairns, Nigel J.; Marcus, Daniel S.; McDade, Eric; Ringman, John M.; Graff-Radford, Neill R.; Ghetti, Bernardino; Farlow, Martin R.; Sperling, Reisa; Salloway, Steve; Schofield, Peter R.; Masters, Colin L.; Martins, Ralph N.; Rossor, Martin N. N.; Jucker, Mathias; Danek, Adrian; Förster, Stefan; Lane, Christopher A.S.; Morris, John C.; Benzinger, Tammie L. S.; Bateman, Randall J.; Department of Neurology, IU School of MedicineOBJECTIVE: To investigate the associations of cerebral amyloidosis with concurrent cognitive performance and with longitudinal cognitive decline in asymptomatic and symptomatic stages of autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease (ADAD). METHODS: Two hundred sixty-three participants enrolled in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network observational study underwent neuropsychological evaluation as well as PET scans with Pittsburgh compound B. One hundred twenty-one participants completed at least 1 follow-up neuropsychological evaluation. Four composite cognitive measures representing global cognition, episodic memory, language, and working memory were generated using z scores from a battery of 13 standard neuropsychological tests. General linear mixed-effects models were used to investigate the relationship between baseline cerebral amyloidosis and baseline cognitive performance and whether baseline cerebral amyloidosis predicts cognitive change over time (mean follow-up 2.32 years ± 0.92, range 0.89-4.19) after controlling for estimated years from expected symptom onset, APOE ε4 allelic status, and education. RESULTS: In asymptomatic mutation carriers, amyloid burden was not associated with baseline cognitive functioning but was significantly predictive of longitudinal decline in episodic memory. In symptomatic mutation carriers, cerebral amyloidosis was correlated with worse baseline performance in multiple cognitive composites and predicted greater decline over time in global cognition, working memory, and Mini-Mental State Examination. CONCLUSIONS: Cerebral amyloidosis predicts longitudinal episodic memory decline in presymptomatic ADAD and multidomain cognitive decline in symptomatic ADAD. These findings imply that amyloidosis in the brain is an indicator of early cognitive decline and provides a useful outcome measure for early assessment and prevention treatment trials.Item Comparing cortical signatures of atrophy between late-onset and autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease(Elsevier, 2020) Dincer, Aylin; Gordon, Brian A.; Hari-Raj, Amrita; Keefe, Sarah J.; Flores, Shaney; McKay, Nicole S.; Paulick, Angela M.; Shady Lewis, Kristine E.; Feldman, Rebecca L.; Hornbeck, Russ C.; Allegri, Ricardo; Ances, Beau M.; Berman, Sarah B.; Brickman, Adam M.; Brooks, William S.; Cash, David M.; Chhatwal, Jasmeer P.; Farlow, Martin R.; la Fougère, Christian; Fox, Nick C.; Fulham, Michael J.; Jack, Clifford R., Jr.; Joseph-Mathurin, Nelly; Karch, Celeste M.; Lee, Athene; Levin, Johannes; Masters, Colin L.; McDade, Eric M.; Oh, Hwamee; Perrin, Richard J.; Raji, Cyrus; Salloway, Stephen P.; Schofield, Peter R.; Su, Yi; Villemagne, Victor L.; Wang, Qing; Weiner, Michael W.; Xiong, Chengjie; Yakushev, Igor; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall J.; Benzinger, Tammie L.S.; Neurology, School of MedicineDefining a signature of cortical regions of interest preferentially affected by Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology may offer improved sensitivity to early AD compared to hippocampal volume or mesial temporal lobe alone. Since late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD) participants tend to have age-related comorbidities, the younger-onset age in autosomal dominant AD (ADAD) may provide a more idealized model of cortical thinning in AD. To test this, the goals of this study were to compare the degree of overlap between the ADAD and LOAD cortical thinning maps and to evaluate the ability of the ADAD cortical signature regions to predict early pathological changes in cognitively normal individuals. We defined and analyzed the LOAD cortical maps of cortical thickness in 588 participants from the Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center (Knight ADRC) and the ADAD cortical maps in 269 participants from the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) observational study. Both cohorts were divided into three groups: cognitively normal controls (nADRC = 381; nDIAN = 145), preclinical (nADRC = 153; nDIAN = 76), and cognitively impaired (nADRC = 54; nDIAN = 48). Both cohorts underwent clinical assessments, 3T MRI, and amyloid PET imaging with either 11C-Pittsburgh compound B or 18F-florbetapir. To generate cortical signature maps of cortical thickness, we performed a vertex-wise analysis between the cognitively normal controls and impaired groups within each cohort using six increasingly conservative statistical thresholds to determine significance. The optimal cortical map among the six statistical thresholds was determined from a receiver operating characteristic analysis testing the performance of each map in discriminating between the cognitively normal controls and preclinical groups. We then performed within-cohort and cross-cohort (e.g. ADAD maps evaluated in the Knight ADRC cohort) analyses to examine the sensitivity of the optimal cortical signature maps to the amyloid levels using only the cognitively normal individuals (cognitively normal controls and preclinical groups) in comparison to hippocampal volume. We found the optimal cortical signature maps were sensitive to early increases in amyloid for the asymptomatic individuals within their respective cohorts and were significant beyond the inclusion of hippocampus volume, but the cortical signature maps performed poorly when analyzing across cohorts. These results suggest the cortical signature maps are a useful MRI biomarker of early AD-related neurodegeneration in preclinical individuals and the pattern of decline differs between LOAD and ADAD.Item Comparison of Pittsburgh compound B and florbetapir in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies(Elsevier, 2019-02-22) Su, Yi; Flores, Shaney; Wang, Guoqiao; Hornbeck, Russ C.; Speidel, Benjamin; Joseph-Mathurin, Nelly; Vlassenko, Andrei G.; Gordon, Brian A.; Koeppe, Robert A.; Klunk, William E.; Clifford, R. Jack, Jr.; Farlow, Martin R.; Salloway, Stephen; Snider, Barbara J.; Berman, Sarah B.; Roberson, Erik D.; Broschi, Jared; Jimenez-Velazques, Ivonne; van Dyck, Christopher H.; Galasko, Douglas; Yuan, Shauna H.; Jayadev, Suman; Honig, Lawrence S.; Gauthier, Serge; Hsiung, Ging-Yuek R.; Masellis, Mario; Brooks, William S.; Fulham, Michael; Clarnette, Roger; Masters, Colin L.; Wallon, David; Hannequin, Didier; Dubois, Bruno; Pariente, Jeremie; Sanchez-Valle, Raquel; Mummery, Catherine; Ringman, John M.; Bottlaender, Michel; Klein, Gregory; Milosavljevic-Ristic, Smiljana; McDade, Eric; Xiong, Chengjie; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall J.; Benzinger, Tammie L.S.; Neurology, School of MedicineIntroduction: Quantitative in vivo measurement of brain amyloid burden is important for both research and clinical purposes. However, the existence of multiple imaging tracers presents challenges to the interpretation of such measurements. This study presents a direct comparison of Pittsburgh compound B-based and florbetapir-based amyloid imaging in the same participants from two independent cohorts using a crossover design. Methods: Pittsburgh compound B and florbetapir amyloid PET imaging data from three different cohorts were analyzed using previously established pipelines to obtain global amyloid burden measurements. These measurements were converted to the Centiloid scale to allow fair comparison between the two tracers. The mean and inter-individual variability of the two tracers were compared using multivariate linear models both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Results: Global amyloid burden measured using the two tracers were strongly correlated in both cohorts. However, higher variability was observed when florbetapir was used as the imaging tracer. The variability may be partially caused by white matter signal as partial volume correction reduces the variability and improves the correlations between the two tracers. Amyloid burden measured using both tracers was found to be in association with clinical and psychometric measurements. Longitudinal comparison of the two tracers was also performed in similar but separate cohorts whose baseline amyloid load was considered elevated (i.e., amyloid positive). No significant difference was detected in the average annualized rate of change measurements made with these two tracers. Discussion: Although the amyloid burden measurements were quite similar using these two tracers as expected, difference was observable even after conversion into the Centiloid scale. Further investigation is warranted to identify optimal strategies to harmonize amyloid imaging data acquired using different tracers.Item Decreased body mass index in the preclinical stage of autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease(SpringerNature, 2017-04-27) Müller, Stephan; Preische, Oliver; Sohrabi, Hamid R.; Gräber, Susanne; Jucker, Mathias; Dietzsch, Janko; Ringman, Ralph N.; Martins, Ralph N.; McDade, Eric; Schofield, Peter R.; Ghetti, Bernardino; Rossor, Martin; Graff-Radford, Neill R.; Levin, Johannes; Galasko, Douglas; Quaid, Kimberly A.; Salloway, Stephen; Xiong, Chengjie; Benzinger, Tammie; Buckles, Virginia; Masters, Colin L.; Sperling, Reisa; Bateman, Randall J.; Morris, John C.; Laske, Christoph; Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of MedicineThe relationship between body-mass index (BMI) and Alzheimer´s disease (AD) has been extensively investigated. However, BMI alterations in preclinical individuals with autosomal dominant AD (ADAD) have not yet been investigated. We analyzed cross-sectional data from 230 asymptomatic members of families with ADAD participating in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) study including 120 preclinical mutation carriers (MCs) and 110 asymptomatic non-carriers (NCs). Differences in BMI and their relation with cerebral amyloid load and episodic memory as a function of estimated years to symptom onset (EYO) were analyzed. Preclinical MCs showed significantly lower BMIs compared to NCs, starting 11.2 years before expected symptom onset. However, the BMI curves begun to diverge already at 17.8 years before expected symptom onset. Lower BMI in preclinical MCs was significantly associated with less years before estimated symptom onset, higher global Aβ brain burden, and with lower delayed total recall scores in the logical memory test. The study provides cross-sectional evidence that weight loss starts one to two decades before expected symptom onset of ADAD. Our findings point toward a link between the pathophysiology of ADAD and disturbance of weight control mechanisms. Longitudinal follow-up studies are warranted to investigate BMI changes over time.Item Longitudinal Accumulation of Cerebral Microhemorrhages in Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Disease(American Academy of Neurology, 2021-03-23) Joseph-Mathurin, Nelly; Wang, Guoqiao; Kantarci, Kejal; Jack, Clifford R., Jr.; McDade, Eric; Hassenstab, Jason; Blazey, Tyler M.; Gordon, Brian A.; Su, Yi; Chen, Gengsheng; Massoumzadeh, Parinaz; Hornbeck, Russ C.; Allegri, Ricardo F.; Ances, Beau M.; Berman, Sarah B.; Brickman, Adam M.; Brooks, William S.; Cash, David M.; Chhatwal, Jasmeer P.; Chui, Helena C.; Correia, Stephen; Cruchaga, Carlos; Farlow, Martin R.; Fox, Nick C.; Fulham, Michael; Ghetti, Bernardino; Graff-Radford, Neill R.; Johnson, Keith A.; Karch, Celeste M.; Laske, Christoph; Lee, Athene K.W.; Levin, Johannes; Masters, Colin L.; Noble, James M.; O’Connor, Antoinette; Perrin, Richard J.; Preboske, Gregory M.; Ringman, John M.; Rowe, Christopher C.; Salloway, Stephen; Saykin, Andrew J.; Schofield, Peter R.; Shimada, Hiroyuki; Shoji, Mikio; Suzuki, Kazushi; Villemagne, Victor L.; Xiong, Chengjie; Yakushev, Igor; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall J.; Benzinger, Tammie L.S.; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of MedicineObjective: To investigate the inherent clinical risks associated with the presence of cerebral microhemorrhages (CMHs) or cerebral microbleeds and characterize individuals at high risk for developing hemorrhagic amyloid-related imaging abnormality (ARIA-H), we longitudinally evaluated families with dominantly inherited Alzheimer disease (DIAD). Methods: Mutation carriers (n = 310) and noncarriers (n = 201) underwent neuroimaging, including gradient echo MRI sequences to detect CMHs, and neuropsychological and clinical assessments. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses evaluated relationships between CMHs and neuroimaging and clinical markers of disease. Results: Three percent of noncarriers and 8% of carriers developed CMHs primarily located in lobar areas. Carriers with CMHs were older, had higher diastolic blood pressure and Hachinski ischemic scores, and more clinical, cognitive, and motor impairments than those without CMHs. APOE ε4 status was not associated with the prevalence or incidence of CMHs. Prevalent or incident CMHs predicted faster change in Clinical Dementia Rating although not composite cognitive measure, cortical thickness, hippocampal volume, or white matter lesions. Critically, the presence of 2 or more CMHs was associated with a significant risk for development of additional CMHs over time (8.95 ± 10.04 per year). Conclusion: Our study highlights factors associated with the development of CMHs in individuals with DIAD. CMHs are a part of the underlying disease process in DIAD and are significantly associated with dementia. This highlights that in participants in treatment trials exposed to drugs, which carry the risk of ARIA-H as a complication, it may be challenging to separate natural incidence of CMHs from drug-related CMHs.Item Preferential degradation of cognitive networks differentiates Alzheimer's disease from ageing(Oxford University Press, 2018-05-01) Chhatwal, Jasmeer P.; Schultz, Aaron P.; Johnson, Keith A.; Hedden, Trey; Jaimes, Sehily; Benzinger, Tammie L S.; Jack, Clifford; Ances, Beau M.; Ringman, John M.; Marcus, Daniel S.; Ghetti, Bernardino; Farlow, Martin R.; Danek, Adrian; Levin, Johannes; Yakushev, Igor; Laske, Christoph; Koeppe, Robert A.; Galasko, Douglas R.; Xiong, Chengjie; Masters, Colin L.; Schofield, Peter R.; Kinnunen, Kirsi M.; Salloway, Stephen; Martins, Ralph N.; McDade, Eric; Cairns, Nigel J.; Buckles, Virginia D.; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall; Sperling, Reisa A.; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of MedicineConverging evidence from structural, metabolic and functional connectivity MRI suggests that neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, target specific neural networks. However, age-related network changes commonly co-occur with neuropathological cascades, limiting efforts to disentangle disease-specific alterations in network function from those associated with normal ageing. Here we elucidate the differential effects of ageing and Alzheimer's disease pathology through simultaneous analyses of two functional connectivity MRI datasets: (i) young participants harbouring highly-penetrant mutations leading to autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease from the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer's Network (DIAN), an Alzheimer's disease cohort in which age-related comorbidities are minimal and likelihood of progression along an Alzheimer's disease trajectory is extremely high; and (ii) young and elderly participants from the Harvard Aging Brain Study, a cohort in which imaging biomarkers of amyloid burden and neurodegeneration can be used to disambiguate ageing alone from preclinical Alzheimer's disease. Consonant with prior reports, we observed the preferential degradation of cognitive (especially the default and dorsal attention networks) over motor and sensory networks in early autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease, and found that this distinctive degradation pattern was magnified in more advanced stages of disease. Importantly, a nascent form of the pattern observed across the autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease spectrum was also detectable in clinically normal elderly with clear biomarker evidence of Alzheimer's disease pathology (preclinical Alzheimer's disease). At the more granular level of individual connections between node pairs, we observed that connections within cognitive networks were preferentially targeted in Alzheimer's disease (with between network connections relatively spared), and that connections between positively coupled nodes (correlations) were preferentially degraded as compared to connections between negatively coupled nodes (anti-correlations). In contrast, ageing in the absence of Alzheimer's disease biomarkers was characterized by a far less network-specific degradation across cognitive and sensory networks, of between- and within-network connections, and of connections between positively and negatively coupled nodes. We go on to demonstrate that formalizing the differential patterns of network degradation in ageing and Alzheimer's disease may have the practical benefit of yielding connectivity measurements that highlight early Alzheimer's disease-related connectivity changes over those due to age-related processes. Together, the contrasting patterns of connectivity in Alzheimer's disease and ageing add to prior work arguing against Alzheimer's disease as a form of accelerated ageing, and suggest multi-network composite functional connectivity MRI metrics may be useful in the detection of early Alzheimer's disease-specific alterations co-occurring with age-related connectivity changes. More broadly, our findings are consistent with a specific pattern of network degradation associated with the spreading of Alzheimer's disease pathology within targeted neural networks.Item Serum neurofilament dynamics predicts neurodegeneration and clinical progression in presymptomatic Alzheimer's disease(Nature Research, 2019-02) Preische, Oliver; Schultz, Stephanie A.; Apel, Anja; Kuhle, Jens; Kaeser, Stephan A.; Barro, Christian; Gräber, Susanne; Kuder-Buletta, Elke; LaFougere, Christian; Laske, Christoph; Vöglein, Jonathan; Levin, Johannes; Masters, Colin L.; Martins, Ralph; Schofield, Peter R.; Rossor, Martin N.; Graff-Radford, Neill R.; Salloway, Stephen; Ghetti, Bernardino; Ringman, John M.; Noble, James M.; Chhatwal, Jasmeer; Goate, Alison M.; Benzinger, Tammie L. S.; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall J.; Wang, Guoqiao; Fagan, Anne M.; McDade, Eric M.; Gordon, Brian A.; Jucker, Mathias; Alzheimer Network; Allegri, Ricardo; Amtashar, Fatima; Bateman, Randall; Benzinger, Tammie; Berman, Sarah; Bodge, Courtney; Brandon, Susan; Brooks, William; Buck, Jill; Buckles, Virginia; Chea, Sochenda; Chhatwal, Jasmeer; Chrem, Patricio; Chui, Helena; Cinco, Jake; Clifford, Jack; Cruchaga, Carlos; D’Mello, Mirelle; Donahue, Tamara; Douglas, Jane; Edigo, Noelia; Erekin-Taner, Nilufer; Fagan, Anne; Farlow, Marty; Farrar, Angela; Feldman, Howard; Flynn, Gigi; Fox, Nick; Franklin, Erin; Fujii, Hisako; Gant, Cortaiga; Gardener, Samantha; Ghetti, Bernardino; Goate, Alison; Goldman, Jill; Gordon, Brian; Graff-Radford, Neill; Gray, Julia; Gurney, Jenny; Hassenstab, Jason; Hirohara, Mie; Holtzman, David; Hornbeck, Russ; DiBari, Siri Houeland; Ikeuchi, Takeshi; Ikonomovic, Snezana; Jerome, Gina; Jucker, Mathias; Karch, Celeste; Kasuga, Kensaku; Kawarabayashi, Takeshi; Klunk, William; Koeppe, Robert; Kuder-Buletta, Elke; Laske, Christoph; Lee, Jae-Hong; Levin, Johannes; Marcus, Daniel; Martins, Ralph; Mason, Neal Scott; Masters, Colin; Maue-Dreyfus, Denise; McDade, Eric; Montoya, Lucy; Mori, Hiroshi; Morris, John; Nagamatsu, Akem; Neimeyer, Katie; Noble, James; Norton, Joanne; Perrin, Richard; Raichle, Marc; Ringman, John; Roh, Jee Hoon; Salloway, Stephen; Schofield, Peter; Shimada, Hiroyuki; Shiroto, Tomoyo; Shoji, Mikio; Sigurdson, Wendy; Sohrabi, Hamid; Sparks, Paige; Suzuki, Kazushi; Swisher, Laura; Taddei, Kevin; Wang, Jen; Wang, Peter; Weiner, Mike; Wolfsberger, Mary; Xiong, Chengjie; Xu, Xiong; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of MedicineNeurofilament light chain (NfL) is a promising fluid biomarker of disease progression for various cerebral proteopathies. Here we leverage the unique characteristics of the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network and ultrasensitive immunoassay technology to demonstrate that NfL levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (n = 187) and serum (n = 405) are correlated with one another and are elevated at the presymptomatic stages of familial Alzheimer's disease. Longitudinal, within-person analysis of serum NfL dynamics (n = 196) confirmed this elevation and further revealed that the rate of change of serum NfL could discriminate mutation carriers from non-mutation carriers almost a decade earlier than cross-sectional absolute NfL levels (that is, 16.2 versus 6.8 years before the estimated symptom onset). Serum NfL rate of change peaked in participants converting from the presymptomatic to the symptomatic stage and was associated with cortical thinning assessed by magnetic resonance imaging, but less so with amyloid-β deposition or glucose metabolism (assessed by positron emission tomography). Serum NfL was predictive for both the rate of cortical thinning and cognitive changes assessed by the Mini-Mental State Examination and Logical Memory test. Thus, NfL dynamics in serum predict disease progression and brain neurodegeneration at the early presymptomatic stages of familial Alzheimer's disease, which supports its potential utility as a clinically useful biomarker.Item Serum neurofilament light chain levels are associated with white matter integrity in autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease(Elsevier, 2020-08-01) Schultz, Stephanie A.; Strain, Jeremy F.; Adedokun, Adedamola; Wang, Qing; Preische, Oliver; Kuhle, Jens; Flores, Shaney; Keefe, Sarah; Dincer, Aylin; Ances, Beau M.; Berman, Sarah B.; Brickman, Adam M.; Cash, David M.; Chhatwal, Jasmeer; Cruchaga, Carlos; Ewers, Michael; Fox, Nick N.; Ghetti, Bernardino; Goate, Alison; Graff-Radford, Neill R.; Hassenstab, Jason J.; Hornbeck, Russ; Jack, Clifford; Johnson, Keith; Joseph-Mathurin, Nelly; Karch, Celeste M.; Koeppe, Robert A.; Lee, Athene K. W.; Levin, Johannes; Masters, Colin; McDade, Eric; Perrin, Richard J.; Rowe, Christopher C.; Salloway, Stephen; Saykin, Andrew J.; Sperling, Reisa; Su, Yi; Villemagne, Victor L.; Vöglein, Jonathan; Weiner, Michael; Xiong, Chengjie; Fagan, Anne M.; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall J.; Benzinger, Tammie L. S.; Jucker, Mathias; Gordon, Brian A.; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of MedicineNeurofilament light chain (NfL) is a protein that is selectively expressed in neurons. Increased levels of NfL measured in either cerebrospinal fluid or blood is thought to be a biomarker of neuronal damage in neurodegenerative diseases. However, there have been limited investigations relating NfL to the concurrent measures of white matter (WM) decline that it should reflect. White matter damage is a common feature of Alzheimer's disease. We hypothesized that serum levels of NfL would associate with WM lesion volume and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics cross-sectionally in 117 autosomal dominant mutation carriers (MC) compared to 84 non-carrier (NC) familial controls as well as in a subset (N = 41) of MC with longitudinal NfL and MRI data. In MC, elevated cross-sectional NfL was positively associated with WM hyperintensity lesion volume, mean diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and axial diffusivity and negatively with fractional anisotropy. Greater change in NfL levels in MC was associated with larger changes in fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, and radial diffusivity, all indicative of reduced WM integrity. There were no relationships with NfL in NC. Our results demonstrate that blood-based NfL levels reflect WM integrity and supports the view that blood levels of NfL are predictive of WM damage in the brain. This is a critical result in improving the interpretability of NfL as a marker of brain integrity, and for validating this emerging biomarker for future use in clinical and research settings across multiple neurodegenerative diseases.Item Utility of perfusion PET measures to assess neuronal injury in Alzheimer's disease(Elsevier, 2018-09-27) Joseph-Mathurin, Nelly; Su, Yi; Blazey, Tyler M.; Jasielec, Mateusz; Vlassenko, Andrei; Friedrichsen, Karl; Gordon, Brian A.; Hornbeck, Russ C.; Cash, Lisa; Ances, Beau M.; Veale, Thomas; Cash, David M.; Brickman, Adam M.; Buckles, Virginia; Cairns, Nigel J.; Cruchaga, Carlos; Goate, Alison; Jack, Clifford R., Jr.; Karch, Celeste; Klunk, William; Koeppe, Robert A.; Marcus, Daniel S.; Mayeux, Richard; McDade, Eric; Noble, James M.; Ringman, John; Saykin, Andrew J.; Thompson, Paul M.; Xiong, Chengjie; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall J.; Benzinger, Tammie L. S.; Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network; Radiology and Imaging Sciences, School of MedicineIntroduction: 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) is commonly used to estimate neuronal injury in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we evaluate the utility of dynamic PET measures of perfusion using 11C-Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) to estimate neuronal injury in comparison to FDG PET. Methods: FDG, early frames of PiB images, and relative PiB delivery rate constants (PiB-R1) were obtained from 110 participants from the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network. Voxelwise, regional cross-sectional, and longitudinal analyses were done to evaluate the correlation between images and estimate the relationship of the imaging biomarkers with estimated time to disease progression based on family history. Results: Metabolism and perfusion images were spatially correlated. Regional PiB-R1 values and FDG, but not early frames of PiB images, significantly decreased in the mutation carriers with estimated year to onset and with increasing dementia severity. Discussion: Hypometabolism estimated by PiB-R1 may provide a measure of brain perfusion without increasing radiation exposure.