Lipid peroxidation biomarkers correlation with medial temporal atrophy in early Alzheimer Disease

Alzheimer Disease (AD) is a pathology that causes millions of deaths every year and it also generates severe economic consequences for families and public health systems. Oxidative stress is related to neurodegenerative diseases damage. In fact, brain lipid oxidation could produce brain atrophy. The main objective of this study is the evaluation of atrophy and lipid peroxidation damage in AD patients. We studied medial temporal brain atrophy by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a set of lipid peroxidation biomarkers from plasma samples, respectively. The participants were AD patients in early stages (n = 80) and healthy controls (n = 32). Some lipid peroxidation compounds (neuroprostanes, isoprostanes, neurofurans, isofurans, 17-epi-17-F_2t-dihomo-IsoP, PGF_2α) in plasma showed statistically significant correlation with medial temporal atrophy. So, they were selected to generate an AD diagnosis model, showing an AUC-ROC of 0.900, close to accuracy achieved by the model based on neuroimaging analysis (AUC-ROC 0.929). In addition, the new model showed suitable specificity, so it could be used as screening test. The developed model based on plasma biomarkers could reflect white and grey matter lipid peroxidation, which occurs in medial temporal lobe in early AD patients. Nevertheless, more studies are needed in this field in order to evaluate specificity against other dementias or neurodegenerative diseases.