Psychotic Symptoms Are Associated with Elevated Tau PET Signal in the Amygdala Independent of Alzheimer's Disease Clinical Severity and Amyloid Burden

Overview

Journal medRxiv

Date 2024 Jan 23

PMID 38260648

Authors

Aubrey S Johnson

Galen Ziaggi

Anna C Smith

Hannah Houlihan

Lauren B Heuer

Diana S Guzman

Amarachukwu Okafor

Edward D Huey

Daniel Talmasov

Frank Provenzano

William C Kreisl

Patrick J Lao

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Psychosis in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with worse outcomes, yet no established biomarkers exist for early diagnosis and intervention. We compared tau PET burden across older individuals with and without psychotic symptoms.

Methods: [F]AV1451 tau PET binding was compared between 26 Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) subjects with psychotic symptoms (delusions and/or hallucinations) and 26 ADNI subjects without psychotic symptoms, matched for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and clinical severity. Tau was assessed on a region-of-interest and voxel level, corrected for amyloid PET burden.

Results: Tau was greater in individuals with psychotic symptoms in the amygdala in region-of-interest analyses, and in amygdala, thalamus, putamen, right hippocampus, right entorhinal cortex, and right frontal cortex in voxel-based analyses. When considering different onset and type of psychotic symptoms, tau binding was greatest in those with concurrent delusions.

Conclusion: Elevated tau in limbic regions may be relevant for psychotic symptoms in aging and AD.

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