24 Feb 2018

In the brains of carriers of familial Alzheimer’s disease mutations, Aβ starts accumulating in some regions more than two decades before symptoms appear, metabolism wanes six years later, and the brain begins to shrink about 10 years after that, or about five years prior to onset. This pattern plays out in many regions of the brain, according to the largest longitudinal neuroimaging study to date of people in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN). Brian Gordon, Tyler Blazey, and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis reported that this cascade emanated from the precuneus. However, some regions of the brain sidestepped this order. For example, their metabolism stayed normal despite Aβ build-up, or they shrank without accumulating plaques. Published in the March Lancet Neurology with dramatic videos of growing pathology, the findings paint a complex regional picture of neuropathological changes in preclinical AD.

“The authors present some of the most reliable evidence to date for early biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease more than 20 years before dementia onset,” wrote Arthur Toga of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in a comment to Alzforum.

“This study supports the evidence that amyloid pathology drives neurodegenerative processes in early onset AD, observations that we have also reported in preclinical late-onset AD,” commented Heidi Jacobs of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “[It] challenges us to look more closely at regional differences in the temporal time line of biomarkers,” she added.                           

In people with AD, memory problems reflect decades of pathological change brewing in the brain. DIAN comprises families who carry autosomal-dominant mutations in the PSEN1, PSEN2, or APP genes. Affected members develop early onset AD at an age researchers can predict based on family history and mutation. With the exception of small longitudinal studies, most published data on autosomal-dominant AD have been cross-sectional thus far, and support the idea that AD pathology initiates decades prior to estimated symptom onset and spreads from region to region throughout the brain (Jul 2012 news; Benzinger et al., 2013; Fleisher et al., 2015). 

Working with Tammie Benzinger at WashU, Gordon, Blazey, and colleagues tapped into the ever-growing cache of longitudinal, neuroimaging data from DIAN to track pathological changes both regionally and temporally. They analyzed data from 229 mutation carriers and 148 noncarriers, whose age ranged from 29 years younger than expected age of onset to 10 years older. So far, more than half of these participants have been scanned at least twice, enabling longitudinal analysis. Those with serial data were scanned up to six times, averaging 2.4 scans per person. The researchers used PiB-PET to measure Aβ accumulation, FDG-PET to assess glucose metabolism, and structural MRI to measure thinning in 41 regions of the brain, 34 cortical and seven subcortical.

The researchers fed both serial and cross-sectional data into a Bayesian statistical model to calculate annual rates of change for each marker. For each region, the researchers estimated the earliest time in the disease course when rates of change for each imaging marker in carriers diverged from those in age-matched noncarriers. 

Amyloid to Atrophy. The first signs of amyloid, hypometabolism, and cortical thinning by marker and by brain region. [Courtesy of Gordon et al., Lancet Neurology, 2018.]

“This study provides convincing evidence that the pattern of functional decline in autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease begins with Aβ deposition, progresses to metabolic decline, and ultimately culminates with structural decline before dementia symptoms arise—consistent with previous cross-sectional studies,” Toga wrote. 

Aβ accumulation was the first of the three imaging measures to accelerate relative to noncarriers. This happened broadly across the brain. In 32 of 34 cortical regions, and in three of the subcortical regions, the annual change in PiB-PET uptake started to ramp up in mutation carriers 18.9 years before symptom onset on average. This acceleration occurred in the precuneus first, 22 years before onset. The posterior cingulate gyrus and medial orbital frontal cortex followed soon after, at 21 years. In the precuneus, and in the majority of other regions that developed Aβ pathology, the rate of deposition accelerated rapidly at first, then peaked but remained positive even after symptom onset. In a few regions of the brain, including the hippocampus and thalamus, the rate of PiB uptake never deviated significantly from that in noncarriers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aβ Accumulation. Annual rates of change (top) in PiB-PET uptake (bottom) mapped throughout the brain from 24 years prior to onset to 10 years after onset. Click to play movie. [Courtesy of Gordon et al., Lancet Neurology, 2018.]

At an average of 14.1 years before symptom onset, neuronal activity as measured by brain glucose metabolism started to slow down in carriers. This was much more focal than Aβ deposition, occurring in only eight cortical regions and no subcortical ones. Again, the precuneus was the canary in the coalmine, plunging into a metabolic downturn 18 years prior to symptoms. Glucose metabolism continued to plummet in this region until stabilizing about five years prior to clinical disease. 

Metabolic Plunge. Annual rates of change (top) in FDG-PET uptake (bottom) mapped throughout the brain from 24 years prior to onset to 10 years after. Click to play movie. [Courtesy of Gordon et al., Lancet Neurology, 2018.]

Finally, at an average of 4.7 years prior to onset, parts of the brain started shriveling. Atrophy was widespread, ultimately affecting 24 of 34 cortical and all seven subcortical regions. The precuneus caved first, about 13 years prior to onset, while a few regions, such as the medial orbital frontal and superior frontal, evaded this structural expression of neurodegeneration until after clinical disease manifested.

For investigators who study biomarker changes in specific brain regions, the researchers created an online interface that displays the data and can be filtered in various ways (see DIAN longitudinal data). 

Thinning Out Fast. Annual rates of change (top) in cortical thickness (bottom) mapped throughout the brain from 24 years prior to onset to 10 years after onset. Click to play movie. [Courtesy of Gordon et al., Lancet Neurology, 2018.]

Toga also drew attention to the significant regional and temporal differences in the cascade across the brain. “The considerable heterogeneity observed across regions suggests that vulnerability evolves both spatially and temporally as the disease progresses. This will be useful in guiding future biomarker research and in designing clinical trials.” The picture will become clearer as more longitudinal data roll in, Gordon said, as more participants have three or more visits. 

One obvious missing piece of the puzzle is tau pathology. Many studies tie tau more closely to neurodegeneration than they do Aβ. A recent cross-sectional tau PET imaging study in carriers of the PSEN1 E280A mutation saw tau accumulate in the medial temporal lobe a few years prior to symptom onset and spread into the cortex as memory problems began (Feb 2018 news). Preliminary tau PET data from the DIAN cohort largely agrees. Gordon told Alzforum that longitudinal tau imaging data from the cohort will soon be published, along with cognitive findings to tie the entire cascade together (Aug 2017 conference news). 

Weaving tau PET into the picture could shed light on the regional heterogeneity in the pathological cascade reported here. For example, the hippocampus shrank despite evading Aβ pathology and metabolic dysfunction; this region is known to develop tau pathology early in AD. Gordon proposed that the hippocampus may actually harbor very low amounts of Aβ aggregates that are sufficient to stoke tau pathology and atrophy in the region.

Jacobs from MGH pointed out that the medial temporal lobe, which includes the hippocampus, is tightly connected to the precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), two regions bearing the earliest burden of Aβ accumulation in the DIAN cohort. Jacobs recently reported that the erosion of white-matter tracts connecting the hippocampus to the PCC correlated with elevated tau pathology in the PCC and with memory problems (Feb 2018 news). “These connections may be related to the mechanisms underlying the interaction between amyloid and tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease,” she wrote.

In a commentary accompanying Gordon’s paper, Betty Tijms and Pieter Jelle Visser and of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam also proposed that Aβ aggregation might interact with tau via these same connections. Importantly, tau PET imaging in PSEN1 E280A carriers also showed early tau accumulation in the precuneus (Quiroz et al., 2018). 

What renders the precuneus vulnerable to Aβ, and potentially tau, accumulation? Some researchers, most notably co-author Marcus Raichle of Washington University, favor the idea that its susceptibility stems from its unique metabolic characteristics, including a dependence on aerobic glycolysis, a glucose-burning pathway that plummets in the region with aging (Aug 2017 news; Sep 2010 news). Though Aβ deposition appeared long before the drop in glucose uptake in Gordon’s study, the researchers did not assess aerobic glycolysis specifically.

Whether the brain changes similarly in late-onset AD (LOAD) remains to be seen. Gordon pointed out that compared with the relatively young DIAN cohort, people with LOAD are likely to have additional metabolic, neuroinflammatory, and vascular confounders that could influence the temporal and regional progression of pathology in the brain.

Tijms and Visser noted that in most brain regions affected by hypometabolism in the DIAN cohort, this dysfunction closely trailed Aβ accumulation, and both occurred long before atrophy. However, in sporadic AD, hypometabolism has been more closely tied to atrophy (Nov 2017 news). “Hypometabolism in mutation carriers might result from mitochondrial dysfunction caused by specific mutations in APP and PSEN1, and in sporadic AD, hypometabolism might be more closely related to atrophy,” they proposed.

Yakeel Quiroz of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who recently reported Aβ and tau accumulation in the precunei of PSEN1 E280A carriers, commended the authors. “They did an amazing job describing the temporal and spatial patterns of biomarker changes in preclinical AD, which has great relevance for clinical practice and clinical trials,” she wrote.—Jessica Shugart

 

Comments

1. • Heidi Jacobs
     MGH / Harvard Medical School & Maastricht University
   • Posted: 24 Feb 2018

   This is a terrific study modeling the temporal and spatial changes of amyloid, metabolic patterns, and atrophy in a large sample of well-characterized individuals with autosomal-dominant Alzheimer’s disease. This group of individuals is perfectly suited to investigate these questions, as we can stage them along a time axis that indicates the estimated years before the onset of symptoms. This study reveals the complexity of the interaction between amyloid and neurodegenerative accumulations during the long time window before the first symptoms become evident.

   Consistent with CSF data and recent studies (Bateman et al., 2012; Quiroz et al. 2018), this study supports the evidence that amyloid pathology drives neurodegenerative processes in early onset AD, observations that we have also reported in preclinical late-onset AD. For me there are two exciting observations in this study.

   First, the study challenges us to look more closely at regional differences in the temporal time line of biomarkers. Overall, amyloid deposition occurred on average 20 years before the expected onset, followed by a decrease in glucose metabolism (18 years prior to expected onset), and this was then followed by changes in gray-matter volume 13 years before onset of symptoms. Interestingly, the precuneus was the region showing the earliest amyloid deposition, followed by the orbitofrontal cortex. The vulnerability of the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex to Alzheimer’s disease pathology has been reported earlier in early onset AD (Benzinger et al., 2016). But the hippocampus showed a different temporal order of events, in which atrophy occurred before amyloid deposition. The medial temporal lobe regions are vulnerable to tau pathology, but also have strong connections to the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex. These connections may be related to the mechanisms underlying the interaction between amyloid and tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, the heterogeneity in some of these regional temporal events may suggest that biomarkers should not be stage-specific, but potentially contain also some region-specific information.

   Second, Gordon and colleagues report a curvilinear pattern for the FDG data, showing a slight increase in metabolism before the decline in glucose metabolism. This is intriguing and opens up the question of whether this is a cause or a consequence of amyloid. Is this reflecting amyloid-related hyperexcitibility, or is this increase in glucose metabolism driving amyloid deposition (Cirrito et al., 2005; Bero et al., 2011)? The current data does not yet answer such a causality question, but future animal or intervention studies may be able to throw more light on it.

   References:

   Quiroz YT, Sperling RA, Norton DJ, Baena A, Arboleda-Velasquez JF, Cosio D, Schultz A, Lapoint M, Guzman-Velez E, Miller JB, Kim LA, Chen K, Tariot PN, Lopera F, Reiman EM, Johnson KA. Association Between Amyloid and Tau Accumulation in Young Adults With Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer Disease. JAMA Neurol. 2018 May 1;75(5):548-556. PubMed.

   Bateman RJ, Xiong C, Benzinger TL, Fagan AM, Goate A, Fox NC, Marcus DS, Cairns NJ, Xie X, Blazey TM, Holtzman DM, Santacruz A, Buckles V, Oliver A, Moulder K, Aisen PS, Ghetti B, Klunk WE, McDade E, Martins RN, Masters CL, Mayeux R, Ringman JM, Rossor MN, Schofield PR, Sperling RA, Salloway S, Morris JC. Clinical and biomarker changes in dominantly inherited Alzheimer's disease. N Engl J Med. 2012 Aug 30;367(9):795-804. PubMed.

   Benzinger TL, Gordon BA, Friedrichsen KA, Su Y, Christensen J, Hornbeck RC, Mishra S, Aldea P, Cash L, Ances B, McConathy J, Koeppe RA, McDade E, Cairns NJ, Morris JC, Bateman R, Buckles V, the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) Study Group. Tau PET Imaging With Av-1451 in Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer's Disease: Update from the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN). Alzheimer's & Dementia, July 2016

   Cirrito JR, Yamada KA, Finn MB, Sloviter RS, Bales KR, May PC, Schoepp DD, Paul SM, Mennerick S, Holtzman DM. Synaptic activity regulates interstitial fluid amyloid-beta levels in vivo. Neuron. 2005 Dec 22;48(6):913-22. PubMed.

   Bero AW, Yan P, Roh JH, Cirrito JR, Stewart FR, Raichle ME, Lee JM, Holtzman DM. Neuronal activity regulates the regional vulnerability to amyloid-β deposition. Nat Neurosci. 2011 Jun;14(6):750-6. Epub 2011 May 1 PubMed.

   View all comments by Heidi Jacobs
2. • Arthur Toga
     Keck School of Medicine of USC, The Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics
   • Posted: 24 Feb 2018

   This study provides convincing evidence that the pattern of functional decline in autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease begins with Aβ deposition, progresses to metabolic decline, and ultimately culminates with structural decline before dementia symptoms arise—consistent with previous cross-sectional studies.

   Whereas previous analyses have provided an incomplete timeline of disease progression, this longitudinal study uses a large cohort and documents relatively consistent biomarker ordering across neuroanatomical regions. The considerable heterogeneity observed across regions, which suggests that vulnerability evolves both spatially and temporally as the disease progresses, will be useful in guiding future biomarker research and in designing clinical trials. For example, it is notable that the occipital and temporal regions diverged from the aforementioned pattern of decline in that they did not exhibit significant metabolic decline, though Aβ accumulation and structural atrophy occurred.

   The authors present some of the most reliable evidence to date for early biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease more than 20 years before dementia onset. Further longitudinal examination of genetically vulnerable individuals, including the examination of tau pathology, will be key for establishing accurate temporal and spatial sequencing of biomarkers.

   View all comments by Arthur Toga
3. • Yakeel T. Quiroz
     Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
   • Posted: 24 Feb 2018

   Gordon and colleagues provide further evidence of brain changes in non-demented individuals with autosomal-dominant AD, several years before estimated clinical onset. The temporal sequence they reported, from amyloid deposition to hypometabolism to cortical thinning, is quite consistent with what we and others have reported in cross-sectional studies of individuals with AD-causing mutations. I think the most interesting and novel finding of this paper is that amyloid levels in the precuneus could distinguish between carriers and noncarriers more than 20 years before expected onset. This is a very nice paper, and the authors did an amazing job describing the temporal and spatial patterns of biomarker changes in preclinical AD, which has great relevance for clinical practice and clinical trials.

   View all comments by Yakeel T. Quiroz

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References

News Citations

1. Paper Alert: DIAN Biomarker Data Show Changes Decades Before AD 13 Jul 2012
2. In Familial Alzheimer’s, Tau Creeps into Cortex as Symptoms Show 14 Feb 2018
3. Data from DIAN Revise Familiar Biomarker Trajectories 22 Aug 2017
4. Imaging Clinches Causal Connections between Aβ, Tau, Circuitry, and Cognition 7 Feb 2018
5. As Youth Fades, So Does the Fire of Glycolysis in the Brain 3 Aug 2017
6. Brain Aβ Patterns Linked to Brain Energy Metabolism 17 Sep 2010
7. Daydreaming Network Serves as Ground Zero for Aβ Deposition 3 Nov 2017

Paper Citations

1. Benzinger TL, Blazey T, Jack CR Jr, Koeppe RA, Su Y, Xiong C, Raichle ME, Snyder AZ, Ances BM, Bateman RJ, Cairns NJ, Fagan AM, Goate A, Marcus DS, Aisen PS, Christensen JJ, Ercole L, Hornbeck RC, Farrar AM, Aldea P, Jasielec MS, Owen CJ, Xie X, Mayeux R, Brickman A, McDade E, Klunk W, Mathis CA, Ringman J, Thompson PM, Ghetti B, Saykin AJ, Sperling RA, Johnson KA, Salloway S, Correia S, Schofield PR, Masters CL, Rowe C, Villemagne VL, Martins R, Ourselin S, Rossor MN, Fox NC, Cash DM, Weiner MW, Holtzman DM, Buckles VD, Moulder K, Morris JC. Regional variability of imaging biomarkers in autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Nov 19;110(47):E4502-9. Epub 2013 Nov 5 PubMed.
2. Fleisher AS, Chen K, Quiroz YT, Jakimovich LJ, Gutierrez Gomez M, Langois CM, Langbaum JB, Roontiva A, Thiyyagura P, Lee W, Ayutyanont N, Lopez L, Moreno S, Muñoz C, Tirado V, Acosta-Baena N, Fagan AM, Giraldo M, Garcia G, Huentelman MJ, Tariot PN, Lopera F, Reiman EM. Associations between biomarkers and age in the presenilin 1 E280A autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease kindred: a cross-sectional study. JAMA Neurol. 2015 Mar;72(3):316-24. PubMed.
3. Quiroz YT, Sperling RA, Norton DJ, Baena A, Arboleda-Velasquez JF, Cosio D, Schultz A, Lapoint M, Guzman-Velez E, Miller JB, Kim LA, Chen K, Tariot PN, Lopera F, Reiman EM, Johnson KA. Association Between Amyloid and Tau Accumulation in Young Adults With Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer Disease. JAMA Neurol. 2018 May 1;75(5):548-556. PubMed.

Other Citations

1. PSEN1 E280A

External Citations

1. DIAN longitudinal data

Further Reading

News

1. PET Staging Charts Gradual Course of Amyloid Deposition in Alzheimer’s 28 Oct 2017