Crary JF, Trojanowski JQ, Schneider JA, Abisambra JF, Abner EL, Alafuzoff I, Arnold SE, Attems J, Beach TG, Bigio EH, Cairns NJ, Dickson DW, Gearing M, Grinberg LT, Hof PR, Hyman BT, Jellinger K, Jicha GA, Kovacs GG, Knopman DS, Kofler J, Kukull WA, Mackenzie IR, Masliah E, McKee A, Montine TJ, Murray ME, Neltner JH, Santa-Maria I, Seeley WW, Serrano-Pozo A, Shelanski ML, Stein T, Takao M, Thal DR, Toledo JB, Troncoso JC, Vonsattel JP, White CL 3rd, Wisniewski T, Woltjer RL, Yamada M, Nelson PT. Primary age-related tauopathy (PART): a common pathology associated with human aging. Acta Neuropathol. 2014 Dec;128(6):755-66. Epub 2014 Oct 28 PubMed.

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  1. It has been known for more than 20 years that many older people can have tau pathology in the brain without evidence of amyloid or other pathology. The older people are, the more common this is. It is not clear how tau-only pathology affects people, but it may be associated with memory loss. The authors of this paper should be commended for providing a new conceptual framework for pathologists to use when describing this feature in postmortem brain tissue. This will almost certainly open the door to much more study.

    Until now, it has not been possible to study this entity before death. Things are changing. As tau imaging is emerging, it is becoming clear that many cognitively normal people have evidence of at least low and sometimes moderate tau in their brain, much as the pathologists have observed. We are now poised to begin to study how common this is, the implications of this observation with regard to people's cognitive function, and how it affects them over time. This new paper will provide an important foundation for linking the imaging observations with pathology, and for discussing this tau pathology as an entity in its own right, not necessarily as a part of a neurodegenerative disease with other pathology (such as amyloid).

    View all comments by Brad Dickerson

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