Association between amyloid, tau and cerebral small vessel disease

Background Controversy exists with respect to the etiological role of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) in Alzheimer’s (AD). We thus evaluated association between white matter hyperintensity (WMH), an MRI marker CSVD, brain amyloid β (Aβ) and tau burden their plasma markers among subjects varying severity levels cognitive impairment. Methods recruited 84 from CU-SEEDS (The Chinese University Hong Kong-Screening for Early AlzhEimer’s DiseaSe) study who were stroke-free had impairment: 10 healthy controls [HC], 32 subjective decline [SCD], 26 mild impairment [MCI] 16 dementia. All underwent structural MRI, 11C- PIB, 18F-T807 positron emission tomography (PET), measure WMH volume, pathological Aβ deposition (A+) (T+), respectively. volume was quantified by automatic segmentation using AccuBrain® IV 1.1. Plasma Aβ40, Aβ42, total (t-tau), phosphorylated at 181 (p-tau181) neurofilament light chain (NfL) measured Single Molecule Array (SiMoA) assays 71 subjects. Results The mean age 67.5. 34 (40.8%) male. No significant associations found global 11C-PIB or standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) on PET. Interestingly, we that increasing significantly correlated higher p-tau181 level (β = 0.10; 95% C.I.: 0.012 – 0.188; P 0.03). There no t-tau NfL levels. Conclusion Brain associated but not PET positivity brain. Our results suggest CSVD may contribute elevated AD, such change precede PET-detectable