O1‐12‐02: Amyloid Burden, Cortical Thickness, and Cognitive Function in the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention

Abstract

There is a growing interest in understanding how amyloid b (Ab) accumulation in preclinical Alzheimer's disease relates to brain morphometric measures and cognition. Existing investigations in this area have been primarily conducted in older cognitively normal (CN) individuals. Therefore, not much is known about the associations between Ab burden, cortical thickness, and cognition in midlife. We examined this question in 109, CN, late to middle-aged adults (mean age 5 60.72 6 5.65 years) from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention. They underwent Pittsburgh Compound B (PiB) and anatomical magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and a comprehensive cognitive examination. Blinded visual rating of the PiB scans was used to classify the participants as Ab1 or Ab2. Cortical thickness measurements were derived from the MR images. The Ab1 group exhibited significant thinning of the entorhinal cortex and accelerated age-associated thinning of the parahippocampal gyrus compared with the Ab2 group. The Ab1 group also had numerically lower, but nonsignificant, test scores on all cognitive measures, and significantly faster age-associated cognitive decline on measures of Speed & Flexibility, Verbal Ability, and Visuospatial Ability. Our findings suggest that early Ab aggregation is associated with deleterious changes in brain structure and cognitive function, even in midlife, and that the temporal lag between Ab deposition and the inception of neurodegenerative/cognitive changes might be narrower than currently thought.