Early Impairment in the Ventral Visual Pathway Can Predict Conversion to Dementia in Patients With Amyloid-negative Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

Around 15% to 20% of patients with clinically probable Alzheimer disease have been found to have no significant Alzheimer pathology on amyloid positron emission tomography. A previous study showed that conversion to dementia from amyloid-negative mild cognitive impairment (MCI) was observed in up to 11% of patients, drawing attention to this condition.

We gathered the detailed neuropsychological and neuroimaging data of this population to elucidate factors for conversion to dementia from amyloid-negative amnestic MCI.

This study was a single-institutional, retrospective cohort study of amyloid-negative MCI patients over age 50 with at least 36 months of follow-up. All subjects underwent detailed neuropsychological testing, 3 tesla brain magnetic resonance imaging), and fluorine-18(18F)-florbetaben amyloid positron emission tomography scans.

During the follow-up period, 39 of 107 (36.4%) patients converted to dementia from amnestic MCI. The converter group had more severe impairment in all visual memory tasks. The volumetric analysis revealed that the converter group had significantly reduced total hippocampal volume on the right side, gray matter volume in the right lateral temporal, lingual gyri, and occipital pole.

Our study showed that reduced gray matter volume related to visual memory processing may predict clinical progression in this amyloid-negative MCI population.