Age-related trends in amyloid positivity in Parkinson's disease without dementia

Amyloid-beta (Aβ) plays a pivotal role in cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease (PD). The prevalence of amyloid positivity, evaluated using the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with PD without dementia in their sixties, is lower than that in individuals with normal cognition without PD diagnosis in the same age range. However, it is unclear whether this is also the case in patients with PD without dementia in their eighties. Eighty-nine patients with PD without dementia were retrospectively classified into two groups with a cut-off age of 73 years at diagnosis: a HIGH group and a LOW group, with mean age at diagnosis of 80.2 and 64.9 years, respectively. The prevalence of amyloid positivity was significantly higher in the HIGH (30.6%) than in the LOW group (10.0%) (p = 0.02). The prevalence of amyloid positivity in both groups was lower than that in participants with normal cognition in the same age range. Our findings may be attributed to the shorter preclinical stage of asymptomatic cerebral Aβ deposition in PD, resulting from Aβ accelerating the transition from the asymptomatic to dementia stage. We believe that our findings will incentivize further studies to identify the best disease-modifying therapy for early PD without dementia.