Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026

Abbiategrasso Brain Bank Protocol for Collecting, Processing and Characterizing Aging Brains
Published on: June 3, 2020
Basal forebrain atrophy and cortical amyloid deposition in nondemented elderly subjects
Michel J Grothe1, Michael Ewers2, Bernd Krause3
1German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Rostock, Germany.
Background:
Both neurodegeneration of the cholinergic basal forebrain (BF) and deposition of β-amyloid are early events in the course of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Associations between increased amyloid pathology and cholinergic atrophy have been described in autopsy studies.
Methods:
We used structural MRI and AV45-PET amyloid imaging data of 225 cognitively normal or mildly impaired elderly subjects from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative to assess in vivo associations between BF atrophy and cortical amyloid deposition. Associations were examined using region-of-interest (ROI) and voxel-based approaches with reference to cytoarchitectonic mappings of the cholinergic BF nuclei.
Results:
ROI- and voxel-based approaches yielded complementary evidence for an association between BF volume and cortical amyloid deposition in presymptomatic and predementia stages of AD, irrespective of age, gender, and APOE genotype.
Conclusions:
The observed correlations between BF atrophy and cortical amyloid load likely reflect associations between cholinergic degeneration and amyloid pathology as reported in neuropathologic examination studies.
More Related Videos
08:29Symmetric Bihemispheric Postmortem Brain Cutting to Study Healthy and Pathological Brain Conditions in Humans
Published on: December 18, 2016
09:31Visualization of Amyloid β Deposits in the Human Brain with Matrix-assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Imaging Mass Spectrometry
Published on: March 7, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Alzheimer Disease ll: Pathophysiology
Alzheimer Disease l: Introduction
Alzheimer's Disease: Overview
The clinical diagnosis of AD hinges on the presence of memory and other cognitive impairments. Biomarkers, such as changes in Aβ...
Dementia l: Introduction
Amyloid Fibrils
Amyloid deposits were observed as early as 1639 in the liver and the spleen. In 1854, Rudolph Virchow performed iodine staining,...
Dementia
The progression of dementia is generally gradual....