Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 9, 2025
08:01
Intracerebroventricular Injection of Amyloid-β Peptides in Normal Mice to Acutely Induce Alzheimer-like Cognitive Deficits
Published on: March 16, 2016
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Latent change-on-change between amyloid accumulation and cognitive decline
Hannah M Klinger1, Brian C Healy1, Bernard J Hanseeuw2,3
1Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Alzheimer'S & Dementia : the Journal of the Alzheimer'S Association
|October 29, 2024
Summary
Short-term changes in beta-amyloid (Aβ) accumulation predict cognitive decline in healthy older adults. This relationship may be stronger than previously understood, potentially overshadowing the impact of tau pathology.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Gerontology
- Biomedical Imaging
Background:
- Cross-sectional beta-amyloid (Aβ) influence on cognition is known.
- Longitudinal change-on-change relationships between Aβ and cognition require further exploration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the longitudinal relationship between changes in Aβ and cognitive function.
- To determine if Aβ accumulation predicts cognitive decline in clinically normal older adults.
Main Methods:
- Bivariate latent change score models (LCSM) analyzed changes in 11C-Pittsburgh Compound-B (PiB) PET and the Preclinical Alzheimer's Cognitive Composite-5 (PACC-5).
- Data from 352 healthy older adults in the Harvard Aging Brain Study (HABS) with up to 9 years of PiB-PET and PACC-5 data were used.
- Models adjusted for covariates including age, sex, apolipoprotein ε4 (APOEε4) status, and medial temporal lobe (MTL) tau-PET burden.
Main Results:
- Aβ accumulation was significantly associated with subsequent cognitive decline, independent of cross-sectional Aβ burden.
- No significant association was found between cross-sectional tau-PET and cognitive intercept/slope after adjusting for covariates.
- Latent change models of Aβ and cognitive change may obscure the effects of MTL tau.
Conclusions:
- Short-term changes in Aβ accumulation are linked to cognitive decline in normal aging.
- Aβ accumulation is a key predictor of cognitive decline, but not the only factor.
- The study suggests Aβ change dynamics may be more influential than cross-sectional Aβ or MTL tau in predicting cognitive changes.
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