FMRI complexity correlates with tau-PET in Late-Onset and Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Neurofibrillary tangle pathology detected with tau-PET correlates closely with neuronal injury and cognitive symptoms in Alzheimers disease (AD). Complexity of rs-fMRI time-series, measured by entropy values, have recently been reported to decrease with aging, APOE {varepsilon}4 genotype and cognitive decline in AD. Here we hypothesize that the complexity of BOLD signals provides an index for tau-related neuronal injury and cognitive decline in the AD process. Data were obtained from the Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative phase 3 (ADNI3) and the Estudio de la Enfermedad de Alzheimer en Jalisciences (EEAJ) study, including cognitively normal elderly controls, persons with late onset AD (LOAD) and early onset autosomal dominant AD (ADAD) patients and their relatives. Our cohort consisted of a sample of 147 subjects from ADNI3 and 41 subjects from EEAJ with T1 structural, tau-PET (tracer: 18F-AV1451) and fMRI scans. Correlations between SUVR tau-PET and multi-scale entropy (MSE) were calculated voxelwise as well as for standard automated anatomical labeling (AAL) atlas regions while accounting for age, gender, and regional gray matter volume. Potential pathways relating MSE to cognitive function mediated through tau-PET were assessed by path analysis. We found significant negative correlations between low frequency MSE and tau-PET measures in medial temporal lobe, in both ADNI3 and EEAJ cohorts. Furthermore, low frequency MSE showed significant associations with the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale and the Mini-Mental State Status Exam (MMSE) scores in both ADNI3 and EEAJ cohorts, which were largely mediated through the tau-PET signal. Correlations of MSE with tau-PET in temporal lobes support our hypothesis that the complexity of rs-fMRI is associated with regional tau protein accumulation. Furthermore, the association of MSE with CDR and MMSE, mediated by tau-PET, in disease relevant areas suggests that a reduction in MSE is indicative of decreased information processing capacity and cognitive decline in AD processes.