NEUROBIOLOGY OF AGING

Verberk IMW, Hendriksen HMA, van Harten AC, Wesselman LMP, Verfaillie SCJ, van den Bosch KA, Slot RER, Prins ND, Scheltens P, Teunissen CE and Van der Flier WM.

Neurobiology of Aging. 2020.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2020.01.007

Abstract

Plasma biomarkers are promising, easy-to-use prognostic tools in individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD). We aimed to investigate the relationships of baseline plasma amyloid beta (Abeta)42/Abeta40 and total Tau (tTau) with rate of cognitive decline, in comparison to relationships of baseline cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Abeta42, tTau and phosphorylated tau181 (pTau) with rate of cognitive decline. We included 241 SCD subjects (age=61±9, 40% female, MMSE=28±2) with follow-up (average: 2±2 years, median visits: 3 (range: 1–11)) for re-evaluation of neuropsychological test performance (covering attention, memory, language and executive functioning domains). Using linear mixed models adjusted for age, gender and education, we found that lower plasma Abeta42/Abeta40 was associated with steeper rate of decline on tests assessing attention, memory and executive functioning, but not language. Lower CSF Abeta42 was associated with steeper decline on tests covering all domains. Plasma tTau was not associated with rate of cognitive decline, whereas CSF tTau and pTau were on multiple tests covering all domains. Associations for plasma amyloid and cognitive decline mirror those of CSF amyloid.