Voxel-wise hemispheric Amyloid Asymmetry and its association with cerebral metabolism and grey matter density in cognitively normal older adults

Abstract

Introduction: Alzheimers disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by changes in beta amyloid (Abeta) and tau as well as changes in cerebral glucose metabolism and gray matter volume. This has been categorized as three distinct stages of amyloid, tau, and neurodegeneration. Past studies have shown asymmetric Abeta accumulation and its association with asymmetric cerebral metabolism in preclinical AD. We analyzed data to replicate these findings and extend them to associations with gray matter volume and cognitive function. Methods: We recruited 93 (mean age = 76.4 with SD 6.1 years) cognitively normal adults who underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) with Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) and Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) tracers (to estimate Abeta and glucose metabolism, respectively). We conducted voxel-wise paired t-test on PiB (left vs. right hemispheres) to identify regions that differ in Abeta between the left and right cortex. We identified whether these regions showed asymmetry in FDG and gray matter volume using paired t-tests on each region. We then conducted correlations between asymmetry indices for each region that had significant asymmetry in PiB, FDG, and gray matter volume. We ran a group regression analysis on cognitive functions. Results: We found 26 regions that had significant rightward asymmetry in PiB including prefrontal cortex, temporal cortex, insula, parahippocampus, caudate, and putamen. All these regions showed significant gray matter rightward asymmetry, and most of these regions showed significant FDG asymmetry except the caudate, orbital cortex, medial frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus. Only in the superior frontal gyrus, we found that greater rightward asymmetry in PiB was associated with greater rightward asymmetry in FDG, r(82) =0.38, p<0.005 (FDR corrected); no other regions showed significant Abeta asymmetry correlation with either FDG or gray matter volume asymmetry. We found that greater rightward FDG asymmetry in the superior frontal gyrus was associated with greater visuospatial processing scores in our cognitive domain group regression analysis. Discussion: AD has previously been modeled in three-stages: however, our results indicate that cerebral glucose metabolism may be dynamic throughout the disease progression and may serve as a compensatory pathway for maintaining cognitive functioning.