Focal atrophy in dementia with Lewy bodies on MRI: a distinct pattern from Alzheimer's disease

Increased Cortical Thickness in Alzheimer's Disease

OBJECTIVE

Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have diffuse brain atrophy, but some regions, such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), are spared and may even show increase in size compared to controls. The extent, clinical significance, and mechanisms associated with increased cortical thickness in AD remain unknown. Recent work suggested neural facilitation of regions anticorrelated to atrophied regions in frontotemporal dementia. Here, we aim to determine whether increased thickness occurs in sporadic AD, whether it relates to clinical symptoms, and whether it occur in brain regions functionally connected to-but anticorrelated with-locations of atrophy.

METHODS

Cross-sectional clinical, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative were analyzed to investigate cortical thickness in AD subjects versus controls. Atrophy network mapping was used to identify brain regions functionally connected to locations of increased thickness and atrophy.

RESULTS

AD patients showed increased thickness in the ACC in a region-of-interest analysis and the visual cortex in an exploratory analysis. Increased thickness in the left ACC was associated with preserved cognitive function, while increased thickness in the left visual cortex was associated with hallucinations. Finally, we found that locations of increased thickness were functionally connected to, but anticorrelated with, locations of brain atrophy (r = -0.81, p < 0.05).

INTERPRETATION

Our results suggest that increased cortical thickness in Alzheimer's disease is relevant to AD symptoms and preferentially occur in brain regions functionally connected to, but anticorrelated with, areas of brain atrophy. Implications for models of compensatory neuroplasticity in response to neurodegeneration are discussed. ANN NEUROL 2024;95:929-940.

Altered structural and functional connectivity in Posterior Cortical Atrophy and Dementia with Lewy bodies

Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) show distinct atrophy and overlapping hypometabolism profiles, but it is unknown how disruptions in structural and functional connectivity compare between these disorders and whether breakdowns in connectivity relate to either atrophy or hypometabolism. Thirty amyloid-positive PCA patients, 24 amyloid-negative DLB patients and 30 amyloid-negative cognitively unimpaired (CU) healthy individuals were recruited at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, and underwent a 3T head MRI, including structural MRI, resting state functional MRI (rsfMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) sequences, as well as [18F] fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET. We assessed functional connectivity within and between 12 brain networks using rsfMRI and the CONN functional connectivity toolbox and calculated regional DTI metrics using the Johns Hopkins atlas. Multivariate linear-regression models corrected for multiple comparisons and adjusted for age and sex compared DTI metrics and within-network and between-network functional connectivity across groups. Regional gray-matter volumes and FDG-PET standard uptake value ratios (SUVRs) were calculated and analyzed at the voxel-level using SPM12. We used univariate linear-regression models to investigate the relationship between connectivity measures, gray-matter volume, and FDG-PET SUVR. On DTI, PCA showed degeneration in occipito-parietal white matter, posterior thalamic radiations, splenium of the corpus collosum and sagittal stratum compared to DLB and CU, with greater degeneration in the temporal white matter and the fornix compared to CU. We observed no white-matter degeneration in DLB compared to CU. On rsfMRI, reduced within-network connectivity was present in dorsal and ventral default mode networks (DMN) and the dorsal-attention network in PCA compared to DLB and CU, with reduced within-network connectivity in the visual and sensorimotor networks compared to CU. DLB showed reduced connectivity in the cerebellar network compared to CU. Between-network analysis showed increased connectivity in both cerebellar-to-sensorimotor and cerebellar-to-dorsal attention network connectivity in PCA and DLB. PCA showed reduced anterior DMN-to-cerebellar and dorsal attention-to-sensorimotor connectivity, while DLB showed reduced posterior DMN-to-sensorimotor connectivity compared to CU. PCA showed reduced dorsal DMN-to-visual connectivity compared to DLB. The multimodal analysis revealed weak associations between functional connectivity and volume in PCA, and between functional connectivity and metabolism in DLB. These findings suggest that PCA and DLB have unique connectivity alterations, with PCA showing more widespread disruptions in both structural and functional connectivity; yet some overlap was observed with both disorders showing increased connectivity from the cerebellum.

Atrial Fibrillation and Dementia: Pathophysiological Mechanisms and Clinical Implications

Numerous longitudinal studies suggest a strong association between cardiovascular risk factors and cognitive impairment. Individuals with atrial fibrillation are at higher risk of dementia and cognitive dysfunction, as atrial fibrillation increases the risk of cerebral hypoperfusion, inflammation, and stroke. The lack of comprehensive understanding of the observed association and the complex relationship between these two diseases makes it very hard to provide robust guidelines on therapeutic indications. With this review, we attempt to shed some light on how atrial fibrillation is related to dementia, what we know regarding preventive interventions, and how we could move forward in managing those very frequently overlapping conditions.

Differential diagnosis of MCI with Lewy bodies and MCI due to Alzheimer's disease by visual assessment of occipital hypoperfusion on SPECT images

PURPOSE

Predicting progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's disease (AD) or dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is important. We evaluated morphological and functional differences between MCI with Lewy bodies (MCI-LB) and MCI due to AD (MCI-AD), and a method for differentiating between these conditions using brain MRI and brain perfusion SPECT.

METHODS

A continuous series of 101 subjects, who had visited our memory clinic and met the definition of MCI, were enrolled retrospectively. They were consisted of 60 MCI-LB and 41 MCI-AD subjects. Relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF) on SPECT images and relative brain atrophy on MRI images were evaluated. We performed voxel-based analysis and visually inspected brain perfusion SPECT images for regional brain atrophy, occipital hypoperfusion and the cingulate island sign (CIS), for differential diagnosis of MCI-LB and MCI-AD.

RESULTS

MRI showed no significant differences in regional atrophy between the MCI-LB and MCI-AD groups. In MCI-LB subjects, occipital rCBF was significantly decreased compared with MCI-AD subjects (p < 0.01, family wise error [FWE]-corrected). Visual inspection of occipital hypoperfusion had sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy values of 100%, 73.2% and 89.1%, respectively, for differentiating MCI-LB and MCI-AD. Occipital hypoperfusion was offered higher diagnostic utility than the CIS.

CONCLUSIONS

The occipital lobe was the region with significantly decreased rCBF in MCI-LB compared with MCI-AD subjects. Occipital hypoperfusion on brain perfusion SPECT may be a more useful imaging biomarker than the CIS for visually differentiating MCI-LB and MCI-AD.

Identifying individuals with non-Alzheimer's disease co-pathologies: A precision medicine approach to clinical trials in sporadic Alzheimer's disease

INTRODUCTION

Biomarkers remain mostly unavailable for non-Alzheimer's disease neuropathological changes (non-ADNC) such as transactive response DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) proteinopathy, Lewy body disease (LBD), and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA).

METHODS

A multilabel non-ADNC classifier using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signatures was developed for TDP-43, LBD, and CAA in an autopsy-confirmed cohort (N = 214).

RESULTS

A model using demographic, genetic, clinical, MRI, and ADNC variables (amyloid positive [Aβ+] and tau+) in autopsy-confirmed participants showed accuracies of 84% for TDP-43, 81% for LBD, and 81% to 93% for CAA, outperforming reference models without MRI and ADNC biomarkers. In an ADNI cohort (296 cognitively unimpaired, 401 mild cognitive impairment, 188 dementia), Aβ and tau explained 33% to 43% of variance in cognitive decline; imputed non-ADNC explained an additional 16% to 26%. Accounting for non-ADNC decreased the required sample size to detect a 30% effect on cognitive decline by up to 28%.

DISCUSSION

Our results lead to a better understanding of the factors that influence cognitive decline and may lead to improvements in AD clinical trial design.

Parkinson's Disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies: One and the Same

The question whether Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) are expressions of the same underlying disease has been vigorously debated for decades. The recently proposed biological definitions of Lewy body disease, which do not assign any particular importance to the dopamine system over other degenerating neurotransmitter systems, has once more brought the discussion about different types of Lewy body disease to the forefront. Here, we briefly compare PDD and DLB in terms of their symptoms, imaging findings, and neuropathology, ultimately finding them to be indistinguishable. We then present a conceptual framework to demonstrate how one can view different clinical syndromes as manifestations of a shared underlying Lewy body disease. Early Parkinson's disease, isolated RBD, pure autonomic failure and other autonomic symptoms, and perhaps even psychiatric symptoms, represent diverse manifestations of the initial clinical stages of Lewy body disease. They are characterized by heterogeneous and comparatively limited neuronal dysfunction and damage. In contrast, Lewy body dementia, an encompassing term for both PDD and DLB, represents a more uniform and advanced stage of the disease. Patients in this category display extensive and severe Lewy pathology, frequently accompanied by co-existing pathologies, as well as multi-system neuronal dysfunction and degeneration. Thus, we propose that Lewy body disease should be viewed as a single encompassing disease entity. Phenotypic variance is caused by the presence of individual risk factors, disease mechanisms, and co-pathologies. Distinct subtypes of Lewy body disease can therefore be defined by subtype-specific disease mechanisms or biomarkers.

CSF proteome profiling reveals biomarkers to discriminate dementia with Lewy bodies from Alzheimer´s disease

Diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is challenging and specific biofluid biomarkers are highly needed. We employed proximity extension-based assays to measure 665 proteins in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from patients with DLB (n = 109), Alzheimer´s disease (AD, n = 235) and cognitively unimpaired controls (n = 190). We identified over 50 CSF proteins dysregulated in DLB, enriched in myelination processes among others. The dopamine biosynthesis enzyme DDC was the strongest dysregulated protein, and could efficiently discriminate DLB from controls and AD (AUC:0.91 and 0.81 respectively). Classification modeling unveiled a 7-CSF biomarker panel that better discriminate DLB from AD (AUC:0.93). A custom multiplex panel for six of these markers (DDC, CRH, MMP-3, ABL1, MMP-10, THOP1) was developed and validated in independent cohorts, including an AD and DLB autopsy cohort. This DLB CSF proteome study identifies DLB-specific protein changes and translates these findings to a practicable biomarker panel that accurately identifies DLB patients, providing promising diagnostic and clinical trial testing opportunities.

Severe cholinergic terminal loss in newly diagnosed dementia with Lewy bodies

Cholinergic changes play a fundamental role in the natural history of dementia with Lewy bodies and Lewy body disease in general. Despite important achievements in the field of cholinergic research, significant challenges remain. We conducted a study with four main objectives: (i) to examine the integrity of cholinergic terminals in newly diagnosed dementia with Lewy bodies; (ii) to disentangle the cholinergic contribution to dementia by comparing cholinergic changes in Lewy body patients with and without dementia; (iii) to investigate the in vivo relationship between cholinergic terminal loss and atrophy of cholinergic cell clusters in the basal forebrain at different stages of Lewy body disease; and (iv) to test whether any asymmetrical degeneration in cholinergic terminals would correlate with motor dysfunction and hypometabolism. To achieve these objectives, we conducted a comparative cross-sectional study of 25 newly diagnosed dementia with Lewy bodies patients (age 74 ± 5 years, 84% male), 15 healthy control subjects (age 75 ± 6 years, 67% male) and 15 Parkinson's disease patients without dementia (age 70 ± 7 years, 60% male). All participants underwent 18F-fluoroetoxybenzovesamicol PET and high-resolution structural MRI. In addition, we collected clinical 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET images. Brain images were normalized to standard space and regional tracer uptake and volumetric indices of basal forebrain degeneration were extracted. Patients with dementia showed spatially distinct reductions in cholinergic terminals across the cerebral cortex, limbic system, thalamus and brainstem. Also, cholinergic terminal binding in cortical and limbic regions correlated quantitatively and spatially with atrophy of the basal forebrain. In contrast, patients without dementia showed decreased cholinergic terminal binding in the cerebral cortex despite preserved basal forebrain volumes. In patients with dementia, cholinergic terminal reductions were most severe in limbic regions and least severe in occipital regions compared to those without dementia. Interhemispheric asymmetry of cholinergic terminals correlated with asymmetry of brain metabolism and lateralized motor function. In conclusion, this study provides robust evidence for severe cholinergic terminal loss in newly diagnosed dementia with Lewy bodies, which correlates with structural imaging measures of cholinergic basal forebrain degeneration. In patients without dementia, our findings suggest that loss of cholinergic terminal function occurs 'before' neuronal cell degeneration. Moreover, the study supports that degeneration of the cholinergic system is important for brain metabolism and may be linked with degeneration in other transmitter systems. Our findings have implications for understanding how cholinergic system pathology contributes to the clinical features of Lewy body disease, changes in brain metabolism and disease progression patterns.

Independent and additive contribution of white matter hyperintensities and Alzheimer's disease pathology to basal forebrain cholinergic system degeneration

OBJECTIVES

Degeneration of the cholinergic basal forebrain nuclei (CBFN) system has been studied extensively in Alzheimer's disease (AD). White matter hyperintensities are a hallmark of aging as well as a common co-morbidity of AD, but their contribution to CBFN degeneration has remained unclear. Therefore, we explored the influence of white matter hyperintensities within cholinergic subcortical-cortical projection pathways on CBFN volumes and regional gray matter volumes in AD and age- and gender-matched controls.

METHODS

We analyzed magnetic resonance images (MRI) from 42 patients with AD and 87 age- and gender-matched control subjects. We assessed the white matter hyperintensity burden within the cholinergic projection pathways using the Cholinergic Pathways Hyperintensities Scale (CHIPS), and applied probabilistic anatomical maps for the analysis of CBFN volumes, i.e. the Ch1-3 compartment and the Ch4 cell group (nucleus basalis of Meynert), by diffeomorphic anatomical registration using exponentiated lie algebra analysis of voxel-based morphometry. Using multiple linear regression analyses, we explored correlations between regional gray matter volumes and the extent of white matter hyperintensities or CBFN volumes in both groups.

RESULTS

In AD, all CBFN volumes were significantly smaller than in controls, and white matter hyperintensity burden within the cholinergic projection pathways was not correlated with CBFN volume. In controls, white matter hyperintensity burden within the cholinergic projection pathways was inversely correlated with CBFN volume when corrected for sex and total intracranial volume, but this correlation was no longer significant after correction for age. Voxel-wise multiple linear regression analyses using threshold-free cluster enhancement revealed that in controls, cholinergic pathway hyperintensities correlated with gray matter loss in perisylvian areas, whereas the were no effects in AD. Moreover, we found that CBFN volumes correlated with distinct regional cortical atrophy patterns in both groups.

CONCLUSION

Our results indicate that white matter hyperintensities and AD pathology contribute independently but additively to the degeneration of cholinergic basal forebrain structures. Whereas AD is primarily associated with CBFN volume loss, cholinergic degeneration associated with white matter hyperintensities appears to involve disruption of cholinergic cortical projection fibers with less pronounced effects on CBFN volumes.

Regional Neuroanatomic Effects on Brain Age Inferred Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Ridge Regression

The biological age of the brain differs from its chronological age (CA) and can be used as biomarker of neural/cognitive disease processes and as predictor of mortality. Brain age (BA) is often estimated from magnetic resonance images (MRIs) using machine learning (ML) that rarely indicates how regional brain features contribute to BA. Leveraging an aggregate training sample of 3 418 healthy controls (HCs), we describe a ridge regression model that quantifies each region's contribution to BA. After model testing on an independent sample of 651 HCs, we compute the coefficient of partial determination R¯p2 for each regional brain volume to quantify its contribution to BA. Model performance is also evaluated using the correlation r between chronological and biological ages, the mean absolute error (MAE ) and mean squared error (MSE) of BA estimates. On training data, r=0.92, MSE=70.94 years, MAE=6.57 years, and R¯2=0.81; on test data, r=0.90, MSE=81.96 years, MAE=7.00 years, and R¯2=0.79. The regions whose volumes contribute most to BA are the nucleus accumbens (R¯p2=7.27%), inferior temporal gyrus (R¯p2=4.03%), thalamus (R¯p2=3.61%), brainstem (R¯p2=3.29%), posterior lateral sulcus (R¯p2=3.22%), caudate nucleus (R¯p2=3.05%), orbital gyrus (R¯p2=2.96%), and precentral gyrus (R¯p2=2.80%). Our ridge regression, although outperformed by the most sophisticated ML approaches, identifies the importance and relative contribution of each brain structure to overall BA. Aside from its interpretability and quasi-mechanistic insights, our model can be used to validate future ML approaches for BA estimation.

Longitudinal evolution of cortical thickness signature reflecting Lewy body dementia in isolated REM sleep behavior disorder: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND

The isolated rapid-eye-movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) is a prodromal condition of Lewy body disease including Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We aim to investigate the longitudinal evolution of DLB-related cortical thickness signature in a prospective iRBD cohort and evaluate the possible predictive value of the cortical signature index in predicting dementia-first phenoconversion in individuals with iRBD.

METHODS

We enrolled 22 DLB patients, 44 healthy controls, and 50 video polysomnography-proven iRBD patients. Participants underwent 3-T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and clinical/neuropsychological evaluations. We characterized DLB-related whole-brain cortical thickness spatial covariance pattern (DLB-pattern) using scaled subprofile model of principal components analysis that best differentiated DLB patients from age-matched controls. We analyzed clinical and neuropsychological correlates of the DLB-pattern expression scores and the mean values of the whole-brain cortical thickness in DLB and iRBD patients. With repeated MRI data during the follow-up in our prospective iRBD cohort, we investigated the longitudinal evolution of the cortical thickness signature toward Lewy body dementia. Finally, we analyzed the potential predictive value of cortical thickness signature as a biomarker of phenoconversion in iRBD cohort.

RESULTS

The DLB-pattern was characterized by thinning of the temporal, orbitofrontal, and insular cortices and relative preservation of the precentral and inferior parietal cortices. The DLB-pattern expression scores correlated with attentional and frontal executive dysfunction (Trail Making Test-A and B: R = - 0.55, P = 0.024 and R = - 0.56, P = 0.036, respectively) as well as visuospatial impairment (Rey-figure copy test: R = - 0.54, P = 0.0047). The longitudinal trajectory of DLB-pattern revealed an increasing pattern above the cut-off in the dementia-first phenoconverters (Pearson's correlation, R = 0.74, P = 6.8 × 10^-4) but no significant change in parkinsonism-first phenoconverters (R = 0.0063, P = 0.98). The mean value of the whole-brain cortical thickness predicted phenoconversion in iRBD patients with hazard ratio of 9.33 [1.16-74.12]. The increase in DLB-pattern expression score discriminated dementia-first from parkinsonism-first phenoconversions with 88.2% accuracy.

CONCLUSION

Cortical thickness signature can effectively reflect the longitudinal evolution of Lewy body dementia in the iRBD population. Replication studies would further validate the utility of this imaging marker in iRBD.

Quality assessment, variability and reproducibility of anatomical measurements derived from T1-weighted brain imaging: The RIN-Neuroimaging Network case study

Initiatives for the collection of harmonized MRI datasets are growing continuously, opening questions on the reliability of results obtained in multi-site contexts. Here we present the assessment of the brain anatomical variability of MRI-derived measurements obtained from T1-weighted images, acquired according to the Standard Operating Procedures, promoted by the RIN-Neuroimaging Network. A multicentric dataset composed of 77 brain T1w acquisitions of young healthy volunteers (mean age = 29.7 ± 5.0 years), collected in 15 sites with MRI scanners of three different vendors, was considered. Parallelly, a dataset of 7 "traveling" subjects, each undergoing three acquisitions with scanners from different vendors, was also used. Intra-site, intra-vendor, and inter-site variabilities were evaluated in terms of the percentage standard deviation of volumetric and cortical thickness measures. Image quality metrics such as contrast-to-noise and signal-to-noise ratio in gray and white matter were also assessed for all sites and vendors. The results showed a measured global variability that ranges from 11% to 19% for subcortical volumes and from 3% to 10% for cortical thicknesses. Univariate distributions of the normalized volumes of subcortical regions, as well as the distributions of the thickness of cortical parcels appeared to be significantly different among sites in 8 subcortical (out of 17) and 21 cortical (out of 68) regions of i nterest in the multicentric study. The Bland-Altman analysis on "traveling" brain measurements did not detect systematic scanner biases even though a multivariate classification approach was able to classify the scanner vendor from brain measures with an accuracy of 0.60 ± 0.14 (chance level 0.33).

Cross-sectional Associations of β-Amyloid, Tau, and Cerebrovascular Biomarkers With Neurodegeneration in Probable Dementia With Lewy Bodies

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Although alpha-synuclein-related pathology is the hallmark of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), cerebrovascular and Alzheimer disease pathologies are common in patients with DLB. Little is known about the contribution of these pathologies to neurodegeneration in DLB. We investigated associations of cerebrovascular, β-amyloid, and tau biomarkers with gray matter (GM) volume in patients with probable DLB.

METHODS

We assessed patients with probable DLB and cognitively unimpaired (CU) controls with 11C-Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) and 18F-flortaucipir PET as markers of β-amyloid and tau, respectively. MRI was used to assess white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volume (a marker of cerebrovascular lesion load) and regional GM volume (a marker of neurodegeneration). We used correlations and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in the entire cohort and structural equation models (SEMs) in patients with DLB to investigate associations of WMH volume and regional β-amyloid and tau PET standardized uptake value ratios (SUVrs) with regional GM volume.

RESULTS

We included 30 patients with DLB (69.3 ± 10.2 years, 87% men) and 100 CU controls balanced on age and sex. Compared with CU controls, patients with DLB showed a lower GM volume across all cortical and subcortical regions except for the cuneus, putamen, and pallidum. A larger WMH volume was associated with a lower volume in the medial and orbital frontal cortices, insula, fusiform cortex, and thalamus in patients with DLB. A higher PiB SUVr was associated with a lower volume in the inferior temporal cortex, while flortaucipir SUVr did not correlate with GM volume. SEMs showed that a higher age and absence of the APOE ε4 allele were significant predictors of higher WMH volume, and WMH volume in turn was a significant predictor of GM volume in medial and orbital frontal cortices, insula, and inferior temporal cortex. By contrast, we observed 2 distinct paths for the fusiform cortex, with age having an effect through PiB and flortaucipir SUVr on one path and through WMH volume on the other path.

DISCUSSION

Patients with probable DLB have widespread cortical atrophy, most of which is likely influenced by alpha-synuclein-related pathology. Although cerebrovascular, β-amyloid, and tau pathologies often coexist in probable DLB, their contributions to neurodegeneration seem to be region specific.

Sex differences in dementia with Lewy bodies: Focused review of available evidence and future directions

In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on sex differences in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) relating to epidemiology, clinical features, neuropathology, biomarkers, disease progression, and caregiving. While many studies show a higher DLB prevalence in men, this finding is inconsistent and varies by study approach. Visual hallucinations may be more common and occur earlier in women with DLB, whereas REM sleep behavior disorder may be more common and occur earlier in men. Several studies report a higher frequency of parkinsonism in men with DLB, while the frequency of fluctuations appears similar between sexes. Women tend to be older, have greater cognitive impairment at their initial visit, and are delayed in meeting DLB criteria compared to men. Women are also more likely to have Lewy body disease with co-existing AD-related pathology than so-called "pure" Lewy body disease, while men may present with either. Research is mixed regarding the impact of sex on DLB progression. Biomarker and treatment research assessing for sex differences is lacking. Women provide the majority of caregiving in DLB but how this affects the caregiving experience is uncertain. Gaining a better understanding of sex differences will be instrumental in aiding future development of sex-specific strategies in DLB for early diagnosis, care, and drug development.

Multimodality imaging of neurodegenerative disorders with a focus on multiparametric magnetic resonance and molecular imaging

Neurodegenerative diseases afflict a large number of persons worldwide, with the prevalence and incidence of dementia rapidly increasing. Despite their prevalence, clinical diagnosis of dementia syndromes remains imperfect with limited specificity. Conventional structural-based imaging techniques also lack the accuracy necessary for confident diagnosis. Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging and molecular imaging provide the promise of improving specificity and sensitivity in the diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease as well as therapeutic monitoring of monoclonal antibody therapy. This educational review will briefly focus on the epidemiology, clinical presentation, and pathologic findings of common and uncommon neurodegenerative diseases. Imaging features of each disease spanning from conventional magnetic resonance sequences to advanced multiparametric methods such as resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and arterial spin labeling imaging will be described in detail. Additionally, the review will explore the findings of each diagnosis on molecular imaging including single-photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography with a variety of clinically used and experimental radiotracers. The literature and clinical cases provided demonstrate the power of advanced magnetic resonance imaging and molecular techniques in the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases and areas of future and ongoing research. With the advent of combined positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging scanners, hybrid protocols utilizing both techniques are an attractive option for improving the evaluation of neurodegenerative diseases.

Synucleinopathies

The α-synucleinopathies include pure autonomic failure, multiple system atrophy, dementia with Lewy bodies, and Parkinson disease. The past two decades have witnessed significant advances in the diagnostic strategies and symptomatic treatment of motor and nonmotor symptoms of the synucleinopathies. This chapter provides an in-depth review of the pathophysiology, pathology, genetic, epidemiology, and clinical and laboratory autonomic features that distinguish the different synucleinopathies with an emphasis on autonomic failure as a common feature. The treatment of the different synucleinopathies is discussed along with the proposal for multidisciplinary, individualized care models that optimally address the various symptoms. There is an urgent need for clinical scientific studies addressing patients at risk of developing synucleinopathies and the investigation of disease mechanisms, biomarkers, potential disease-modifying therapies, and further advancement of symptomatic treatments for motor and nonmotor symptoms.

Increased pain unpleasantness and pain-related fMRI activation in the periaqueductal gray in Alzheimer's disease

Background

Pain continues to be underrecognized and undertreated in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The periaqueductal gray (PAG) is essential to pain processing and modulation yet is damaged by AD. While evidence exists of altered neural processing of pain in AD, there has not been a focused investigation of the PAG during pain in people with AD.

Purpose

To investigate the role of the PAG in sensory and affective pain processing for people living with AD.

Methods

Participants from a larger study completed pain psychophysics assessments and then a perceptually-matched heat pain task (warmth, mild, and moderate pain) during a functional MRI scan. In this cross-sectional study, we examined blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) responses in the PAG and other pain-related regions in participants with AD (n = 18) and cognitively intact older adults (age- and sex-matched, n = 18). Associations of BOLD percent signal change and psychophysics were also examined.

Results

There were significant main effects of AD status on the temperature needed to reach each perception of warmth or pain, where people with AD reached higher temperatures. Furthermore, participants with AD rated mild and moderate pain as more unpleasant than controls. PAG BOLD activation was greater in AD relative to controls during warmth and mild pain percepts. No significant differences were found for moderate pain or in other regions of interest. Greater PAG activation during mild pain was associated with higher affective/unpleasantness ratings of mild pain in participants with AD but not in controls.

Conclusion

Results suggest a role for the PAG in altered pain responses in people with AD. The PAG is the primary source of endogenous opioid pain inhibition in the neuroaxis, thus, altered PAG function in AD suggests possible changes in descending pain inhibitory circuits. People with AD may have a greater risk of suffering from pain compared to cognitively intact older adults.

Longitudinal Patterns of Cortical Atrophy on MRI in Patients With Alzheimer Disease With and Without Lewy Body Pathology

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Although Alzheimer disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLBs) represent 2 different pathologies, they have clinical overlap, and there is a significant degree of co-occurrence of their neuropathologic findings. Many studies have examined imaging characteristics in clinically diagnosed patients; however, there is a relative lack of longitudinal studies that have studied patients with pathologic confirmation. We examined whether there were differences in longitudinal patterns of cortical atrophy between patients with both AD and DLB (AD/DLB) vs those with AD alone.

METHODS

We collected and analyzed clinical and neuroimaging data from the AD Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database for patients who underwent autopsy. The rates of change in various neuropsychological assessments were not significantly different between patients with AD/DLB and AD, and each group had neuropsychological outcomes consistent with disease progression. For our neuroimaging analysis, we used a linear mixed-effects model to examine whether there were longitudinal differences in cortical rates of atrophy between patients with AD/DLB and AD.

RESULTS

Autopsies and serial neuroimaging were available on 48 patients (24 AD and 24 AD/DLB). Patients with AD alone had significantly higher atrophy rates in the left cuneus, lateral occipital, and parahippocampal regions over time when compared with patients with concomitant DLB, after covarying for interval from imaging to autopsy, sex, and total estimated intracranial volume. Site ID was included as a random effect to account for site differences. For these regions, the rate of decline over time in the AD/DLB group was less steep by a difference of 0.1887, 0.395, and 0.0989, respectively (p = 0.022, 0.006, and 0.006). The lattermost left cuneus volume measurement and Braak Lewy score had a Pearson product-moment correlation of 0.37, p = 0.009, while the lattermost left parahippocampal volume measurement and Braak neurofibrillary tangle score had a Pearson product-moment correlation of -0.327, p = 0.02.

DISCUSSION

Patients with AD had more significant atrophy in the left cuneus, lateral occipital, and parahippocampal regions when compared with patients with AD/DLB. These regions are known to distinguish DLB and AD pathology cross-sectionally but here are shown to distinguish longitudinal disease progression.

Metric magnetic resonance imaging analysis reveals pronounced substantia-innominata atrophy in dementia with Lewy bodies with a psychiatric onset

Background

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a type of dementia often diagnosed in older patients. Since its initial symptoms range from delirium to psychiatric and cognitive symptoms, the diagnosis is often delayed.

Objectives

In our study, we evaluated the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of patients suffering from DLB in correlation with their initial symptoms taking a new pragmatic approach entailing manual measurements in addition to an automated volumetric analysis of MRI.

Methods

A total of 63 patients with diagnosed DLB and valid 3D data sets were retrospectively and blinded evaluated. We assessed atrophy patterns (1) manually for the substantia innominata and (2) via FastSurfer for the most common supratentorial regions. Initial symptoms were categorized by (1) mild cognitive impairment (MCI), (2) psychiatric episodes, and (3) delirium.

Results

Manual metric MRI measurements revealed moderate, but significant substantia-innominata (SI) atrophy in patients with a psychiatric onset. FastSurfer analysis revealed no regional volumetric differences between groups.

Conclusion

The SI in patients with DLB and a psychiatric-onset is more atrophied than that in patients with initial MCI. Our results suggest potential differences in SI between DLB subtypes at the prodromal stage, which are useful when taking a differential-diagnostic approach. This finding should be confirmed in larger patient cohorts.

Visual hallucinations in dementia with Lewy bodies originate from necrosis of characteristic neurons and connections in three-module perception model

Mathematical and computational approaches were used to investigate dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), in which recurrent complex visual hallucinations (RCVH) is a very characteristic symptom. Beginning with interpretative analyses of pathological symptoms of patients with RCVH-DLB in comparison with the veridical perceptions of normal subjects, we constructed a three-module scenario concerning function giving rise to perception. The three modules were the visual input module, the memory module, and the perceiving module. Each module interacts with the others, and veridical perceptions were regarded as a certain convergence to one of the perceiving attractors sustained by self-consistent collective fields among the modules. Once a rather large but inhomogeneously distributed area of necrotic neurons and dysfunctional synaptic connections developed due to network disease, causing irreversible damage, then bottom-up information from the input module to both the memory and perceiving modules were severely impaired. These changes made the collective fields unstable and caused transient emergence of mismatched perceiving attractors. This may account for the reason why DLB patients see things that are not there. With the use of our computational model and experiments, the scenario was recreated with complex bifurcation phenomena associated with the destabilization of collective field dynamics in very high-dimensional state space.

Effects of a multicomponent day-care program on cerebral blood flow in patients with mild cognitive impairment

BACKGROUND

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a prodromal phase of dementia and is considered an important period for intervention to prevent conversion to dementia. It has been well established that multicomponent day-care programs including exercise training, cognitive intervention and music therapy have beneficial effects on cognition, but the effects on cerebral blood flow (CBF) in MCI remain unknown. This study examined whether a multicomponent day-care program would have beneficial effects on the longitudinal changes of CBF in MCI patients.

METHODS

Participants were 24 patients with MCI attending a day-care program; they underwent two ⁹⁹ mTc-ethyl cysteinate dimer single photon emission computed tomography scans during the study period. We evaluated the association between the changes of regional cerebral blood flow and the attendance rate.

RESULTS

There was a significant negative correlation between the reduction of regional CBF in the right parietal region and the attendance rate. We found no significant relation between the baseline CBF images and the attendance rate.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that continuous participation in a multicomponent day-care program might prevent reduction in brain activity in patients with MCI.

Voxel-based morphometry and a deep learning model for the diagnosis of early Alzheimer's disease based on cerebral gray matter changes

This study aimed to analyse cerebral grey matter changes in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using voxel-based morphometry and to diagnose early Alzheimer's disease using deep learning methods based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) evaluating these changes. Participants (111 MCI, 73 normal cognition) underwent 3-T structural magnetic resonance imaging. The obtained images were assessed using voxel-based morphometry, including extraction of cerebral grey matter, analyses of statistical differences, and correlation analyses between cerebral grey matter and clinical cognitive scores in MCI. The CNN-based deep learning method was used to extract features of cerebral grey matter images. Compared to subjects with normal cognition, participants with MCI had grey matter atrophy mainly in the entorhinal cortex, frontal cortex, and bilateral frontotemporal lobes (p < 0.0001). This atrophy was significantly correlated with the decline in cognitive scores (p < 0.01). The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the CNN model for identifying participants with MCI were 80.9%, 88.9%, and 75%, respectively. The area under the curve of the model was 0.891. These findings demonstrate that research based on brain morphology can provide an effective way for the clinical, non-invasive, objective evaluation and identification of early Alzheimer's disease.

Association of β-Amyloid and Basal Forebrain With Cortical Thickness and Cognition in Alzheimer and Lewy Body Disease Spectra

OBJECTIVE

Cholinergic degeneration and β-amyloid contribute to brain atrophy and cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer disease (AD) and Lewy body disease (LBD), but their relationship has not been comparatively evaluated.

METHODS

In this cross-sectional study, we recruited 28 normal controls (NC), 55 patients with AD mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 34 patients with AD dementia, 28 patients with LBD MCI, and 51 patients with LBD dementia. Participants underwent cognitive evaluation, brain MRI to measure the basal forebrain (BF) volume and global cortical thickness (CTh), and ¹⁸F-florbetaben (FBB) PET to measure the standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR). Using general linear models and path analyses, we evaluated the association of FBB-SUVR and BF volume with CTh or cognitive dysfunction in the AD spectrum (AD and NC) and LBD spectrum (LBD and NC), respectively. Covariates included age, sex, education, deep and periventricular white matter hyperintensities, intracranial volume, hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia.

RESULTS

BF volume mediated the association between FBB-SUVR and CTh in both the AD and LBD spectra, while FBB-SUVR was associated with CTh independently of BF volume only in the LBD spectrum. Significant correlation between voxel-wise FBB-SUVR and CTh was observed only in the LBD group. FBB-SUVR was independently associated with widespread cognitive dysfunction in both the AD and LBD spectra, especially in the memory domain (standardized beta [B] for AD spectrum = -0.60, B for LBD spectrum = -0.33). In the AD spectrum, BF volume was associated with memory dysfunction (B = 0.18), and CTh was associated with language (B = 0.21) and executive (B = 0.23) dysfunction. In the LBD spectrum, however, BF volume and CTh were independently associated with widespread cognitive dysfunction.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a common β-amyloid-related degenerative mechanism with or without the mediation of BF in the AD and LBD spectra, while the association of BF atrophy with cognitive dysfunction is more profound and there is localized β-amyloid-cortical atrophy interaction in the LBD spectrum.

Atrial Fibrillation and Dementia: A Report From the AF-SCREEN International Collaboration

Growing evidence suggests a consistent association between atrial fibrillation (AF) and cognitive impairment and dementia that is independent of clinical stroke. This report from the AF-SCREEN International Collaboration summarizes the evidence linking AF to cognitive impairment and dementia. It provides guidance on the investigation and management of dementia in patients with AF on the basis of best available evidence. The document also addresses suspected pathophysiologic mechanisms and identifies knowledge gaps for future research. Whereas AF and dementia share numerous risk factors, the association appears to be independent of these variables. Nevertheless, the evidence remains inconclusive regarding a direct causal effect. Several pathophysiologic mechanisms have been proposed, some of which are potentially amenable to early intervention, including cerebral microinfarction, AF-related cerebral hypoperfusion, inflammation, microhemorrhage, brain atrophy, and systemic atherosclerotic vascular disease. The mitigating role of oral anticoagulation in specific subgroups (eg, low stroke risk, short duration or silent AF, after successful AF ablation, or atrial cardiopathy) and the effect of rhythm versus rate control strategies remain unknown. Likewise, screening for AF (in cognitively normal or cognitively impaired patients) and screening for cognitive impairment in patients with AF are debated. The pathophysiology of dementia and therapeutic strategies to reduce cognitive impairment warrant further investigation in individuals with AF. Cognition should be evaluated in future AF studies and integrated with patient-specific outcome priorities and patient preferences. Further large-scale prospective studies and randomized trials are needed to establish whether AF is a risk factor for cognitive impairment, to investigate strategies to prevent dementia, and to determine whether screening for unknown AF followed by targeted therapy might prevent or reduce cognitive impairment and dementia.

Parsing heterogeneity within dementia with Lewy bodies using clustering of biological, clinical, and demographic data

BACKGROUND

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) includes various core clinical features that result in different phenotypes. In addition, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cerebrovascular pathologies are common in DLB. All this increases the heterogeneity within DLB and hampers clinical diagnosis. We addressed this heterogeneity by investigating subgroups of patients with similar biological, clinical, and demographic features.

METHODS

We studied 107 extensively phenotyped DLB patients from the European DLB consortium. Factorial analysis of mixed data (FAMD) was used to identify dimensions in the data, based on sex, age, years of education, disease duration, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of AD biomarkers, core features of DLB, and regional brain atrophy. Subsequently, hierarchical clustering analysis was used to subgroup individuals based on the FAMD dimensions.

RESULTS

We identified 3 dimensions using FAMD that explained 38% of the variance. Subsequent hierarchical clustering identified 4 clusters. Cluster 1 was characterized by amyloid-β and cerebrovascular pathologies, medial temporal atrophy, and cognitive fluctuations. Cluster 2 had posterior atrophy and showed the lowest frequency of visual hallucinations and cognitive fluctuations and the worst cognitive performance. Cluster 3 had the highest frequency of tau pathology, showed posterior atrophy, and had a low frequency of parkinsonism. Cluster 4 had virtually normal AD biomarkers, the least regional brain atrophy and cerebrovascular pathology, and the highest MMSE scores.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates that there are subgroups of DLB patients with different biological, clinical, and demographic characteristics. These findings may have implications in the diagnosis and prognosis of DLB, as well as in the treatment response in clinical trials.

Corpus Callosum Atrophy in Detection of Mild and Moderate Alzheimer's Disease Using Brain Magnetic Resonance Image Processing and Machine Learning Techniques

Background:

The total number of people with dementia is projected to reach 82 million in 2030 and 152 in 2050. Early and accurate identification of the underlying causes of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is of utmost importance. A large body of research has shown that imaging techniques are most promising technologies to improve subclinical and early diagnosis of dementia. Morphological changes, especially atrophy in various structures like cingulate gyri, caudate nucleus, hippocampus, frontotemporal lobe, etc., have been established as markers for AD. Being the largest white matter structure with a high demand of blood supply from several main arterial systems, anatomical alterations of the corpus callosum (CC) may serve as potential indication neurodegenerative disease.

Objective:

To detect mild and moderate AD using brain magnetic resonance image (MRI) processing and machine learning techniques.

Methods:

We have performed automatic detection and segmentation of the CC and calculated its morphological features to feed into a multivariate pattern analysis using support vector machine (SVM) learning techniques.

Results:

Our results using large patients’ cohort show CC atrophy-based features are capable of distinguishing healthy and mild/moderate AD patients. Our classifiers obtain more than 90%sensitivity and specificity in differentiating demented patients from healthy cohorts and importantly, achieved more than 90%sensitivity and > 80%specificity in detecting mild AD patients.

Conclusion:

Results from this analysis are encouraging and advocate development of an image analysis software package to detect dementia from brain MRI using morphological alterations of the CC.

Neuroimaging alterations in dementia with Lewy bodies and neuroimaging differences between dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer's disease: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis

Aims

The aim of this study was to identify brain regions with local, structural, and functional abnormalities in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and uncover the differences between DLB and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The neural networks involved in the identified abnormal brain regions were further described.

Methods

PubMed, Web of Science, OVID, Science Direct, and Cochrane Library databases were used to identify neuroimaging studies that included DLB versus healthy controls (HCs) or DLB versus AD. The coordinate‐based meta‐analysis and functional meta‐analytic connectivity modeling were performed using the activation likelihood estimation algorithm.

Results

Eleven structural studies and fourteen functional studies were included in this quantitative meta‐analysis. DLB patients showed a dysfunction in the bilateral inferior parietal lobule and right lingual gyrus compared with HC patients. DLB patients showed a relative preservation of the medial temporal lobe and a tendency of lower metabolism in the right lingual gyrus compared with AD. The frontal‐parietal, salience, and visual networks were all abnormally co‐activated in DLB, but the default mode network remained normally co‐activated compared with AD.

Conclusions

The convergence of local brain regions and co‐activation neural networks might be potential specific imaging markers in the diagnosis of DLB. This might provide a pathway for the neural regulation in DLB patients, and it might contribute to the development of specific interventions for DLB and AD.

Comprehensive Analysis of Brain Volume in REM Sleep Behavior Disorder with Mild Cognitive Impairment

BACKGROUND

Rapid-eye-movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a major risk factor for Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. More than a third of RBD patients have mild cognitive impairment (MCI), but their specific structural brain alterations remain poorly understood.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to investigate the local deformation and volume of gray and white matter tissue underlying MCI in RBD.

METHODS

Fifty-two idiopathic RBD patients, including 17 with MCI (33%), underwent polysomnography, neuropsychological, neurological, and magnetic resonance imaging assessments. MCI diagnosis was based on a subjective complaint, cognitive impairment on the neuropsychological battery, and preserved daily functioning. Forty-one controls were also included. Deformation-based morphometry (DBM), voxel-based morphometry (VBM), and regional volume analyses of the corpus callosum and basal forebrain cholinergic were performed. Multiple regressions models were also computed using anatomical, cognitive (composite z score), and motor parameters.

RESULTS

Globally, patients with MCI displayed a widespread pattern of local deformation and volume atrophy in the cortical (bilateral insula, cingulate cortex, precuneus, frontal and temporal regions, right angular gyrus, and mid-posterior segment of the corpus callosum) and subcortical (brainstem, corona radiata, basal ganglia, thalamus, amygdala, and right hippocampus) regions compared to patients without MCI (DBM) or controls (DBM and VBM). Moreover, brain deformation (DBM) in patients were associated with lower performance in attention and executive functions, visuospatial abilities, and higher motor symptoms severity.

CONCLUSION

The present study identified novel brain structural alterations in RBD patients with MCI which correlated with poorer cognitive performance. These results are consistent with those reported in patients with synucleinopathies-related cognitive impairment.

A multiparametric MRI study of structural brain damage in dementia with lewy bodies: A comparison with Alzheimer's disease

INTRODUCTION

Differential diagnosis between dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) is crucial for an adequate patients' management but might be challenging. We investigated with advanced MRI techniques gray (GM) and white matter (WM) damage in DLB patients compared to those with AD.

METHODS

24 DLB patients, 26 age- and disease severity-matched AD patients, and 20 age and sex-matched controls performed clinical and neuropsychological assessment, and brain structural and diffusion-tensor MRI. We measured GM atrophy using voxel-based morphometry, WM hyperintensities (WMH) using a local thresholding segmentation technique, and normal-appearing WM (NAWM) damage using tract-based spatial statistic.

RESULTS

DLB and AD patients exhibited mild-to-moderate-stage dementia. Compared to controls, GM damage was diffuse in AD, while limited to bilateral thalamus and temporal regions in DLB. Compared to DLB, AD patients exhibited GM atrophy in bilateral fronto-temporal and occipital regions. DLB and AD patients showed higher WMH load than controls, with no differences among each other. WMH in DLB were diffuse with relative prevalence in posterior parietal-occipital regions. Compared to controls, both DLB and AD patients showed reduced microstructural integrity of the main supratentorial and infratentorial NAWM tracts. AD patients exhibited greater posterior NAWM damage than DLB.

CONCLUSIONS

DLB showed prominent WM degeneration compared to the limited GM atrophy, while in AD both tissue compartments were severely involved. In DLB, NAWM microstructural degeneration was independent of WMH, thus revealing two possible underlying processes. Different pathophysiological mechanisms are likely to drive GM and WM damage distribution in DLB and AD.

The connections of Locus Coeruleus with hypothalamus: potential involvement in Alzheimer's disease

The hypothalamus and Locus Coeruleus (LC) share a variety of functions, as both of them take part in the regulation of the sleep/wake cycle and in the modulation of autonomic and homeostatic activities. Such a functional interplay takes place due to the dense and complex anatomical connections linking the two brain structures. In Alzheimer's disease (AD), the occurrence of endocrine, autonomic and sleep disturbances have been associated with the disruption of the hypothalamic network; at the same time, in this disease, the occurrence of LC degeneration is receiving growing attention for the potential roles it may have both from a pathophysiological and pathogenetic point of view. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on the anatomical and functional connections between the LC and hypothalamus, to better understand whether the impairment of the former may be responsible for the pathological involvement of the latter, and whether the disruption of their interplay may concur to the pathophysiology of AD. Although only a few papers specifically explored this topic, intriguingly, some pre-clinical and post-mortem human studies showed that aberrant protein spreading and neuroinflammation may cause hypothalamus degeneration and that these pathological features may be linked to LC impairment. Moreover, experimental studies in rodents showed that LC plays a relevant role in modulating the hypothalamic sleep/wake cycle regulation or neuroendocrine and systemic hormones; in line with this, the degeneration of LC itself may partly explain the occurrence of hypothalamic-related symptoms in AD.

Genetic Architecture and Molecular, Imaging and Prodromic Markers in Dementia with Lewy Bodies: State of the Art, Opportunities and Challenges

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is one of the most common causes of dementia and belongs to the group of α-synucleinopathies. Due to its clinical overlap with other neurodegenerative disorders and its high clinical heterogeneity, the clinical differential diagnosis of DLB from other similar disorders is often difficult and it is frequently underdiagnosed. Moreover, its genetic etiology has been studied only recently due to the unavailability of large cohorts with a certain diagnosis and shows genetic heterogeneity with a rare contribution of pathogenic mutations and relatively common risk factors. The rapid increase in the reported cases of DLB highlights the need for an easy, efficient and accurate diagnosis of the disease in its initial stages in order to halt or delay the progression. The currently used diagnostic methods proposed by the International DLB consortium rely on a list of criteria that comprises both clinical observations and the use of biomarkers. Herein, we summarize the up-to-now reported knowledge on the genetic architecture of DLB and discuss the use of prodromal biomarkers as well as recent promising candidates from alternative body fluids and new imaging techniques.

Molecular mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease and the impact of physical exercise with advancements in therapeutic approaches

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common, severe neurodegenerative brain disorder characterized by the accumulation of amyloid-beta plaques, neurofibrillary tangles in the brain causing neural disintegration, synaptic dysfunction, and neuronal death leading to dementia. Although many US-FDA-approved drugs like Donepezil, Rivastigmine, Galantamine are available in the market, their consumption reduces only the symptoms of the disease but fails in potency to cure the disease. This disease affects many individuals with aging. Combating the disease tends to be very expensive. This review focuses on biochemical mechanisms in the neuron both at normal and AD state with relevance to the tau hypothesis, amyloid hypothesis, the risk factors influencing dementia, oxidative stress, and neuroinflammation altogether integrated with neurodegeneration. A brief survey is carried out on available biomarkers in the diagnosis of the disease, drugs used for the treatment, and the challenges in approaching therapeutic targets in inhibiting the disease pathologies. This review conjointly assesses the demerits with the inefficiency of drugs to reach targets, their side effects, and toxicity. Optimistically, this review directs on the advantageous strategies in using nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems to cross the blood-brain barrier for improving the efficacy of drugs combined with a novel neuronal stem cell therapy approach. Determinately, this review aims at the natural, non-therapeutic healing impact of physical exercise on different model organisms and the effect of safe neuromodulation treatments using repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), transcranial Electrical Stimulation (tES) in humans to control the disease pathologies prominent in enhancing the synaptic function.

In vivo nucleus basalis of Meynert degeneration in mild cognitive impairment with Lewy bodies

•

Nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) degeneration occurs early in Lewy body dementia.

•

NBM degeneration is related to cognitive impairment in MCI with Lewy bodies.

•

EEG slowing in MCI patients is related to the severity of NBM degeneration.

Objectives

To investigate in vivo degeneration of the cholinergic system in mild cognitive impairment with Lewy bodies (MCI-LB), we studied nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) volumes from structural MR images and its relation to EEG slowing and cognitive impairment.

Methods

We studied the NBM using structural MR images in 37 patients with MCI-LB, 34 patients with MCI with Alzheimer’s disease (MCI-AD), and 31 healthy control participants. We also tested correlations between NBM volumes and measures of overall cognition and measures of EEG slowing in the MCI groups.

Results

Overall NBM volume was reduced in MCI-LB compared to controls with no significant difference between MCI-AD and controls or between the two MCI groups. The voxel-wise analysis revealed bilateral clusters of reduced NBM volume in MCI-LB compared to controls and smaller clusters in MCI-AD compared to controls. There was a significant association between overall NBM volume and measures of overall cognition in MCI-LB, but not in MCI-AD. In both MCI groups, reduced NBM volume was correlated with more severe EEG slowing.

Conclusions

This study provides in vivo evidence that early cholinergic degeneration in DLB occurs at the MCI stage and is related to the severity of cognitive impairment. Furthermore, the results suggest that early EEG slowing in MCI-LB might be in part cholinergically driven. Importantly, these findings suggest an early cholinergic deficit in MCI-LB that may motivate further testing of the effectiveness of cholinesterase inhibitors in this group.

Differentiating Dementia with Lewy Bodies and Alzheimer's Disease by Deep Learning to Structural MRI

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the second most prevalent cause of degenerative dementia next to Alzheimer's disease (AD). Though current DLB diagnostic criteria employ several indicative biomarkers, relative preservation of the medial temporal lobe as revealed by structural MRI suffers from low sensitivity and specificity, making them unreliable as sole supporting biomarkers. In this study, we investigated how a deep learning approach would be able to differentiate DLB from AD with structural MRI data.

METHODS

Two-hundred and eight patients (101 DLB, 69 AD, and 38 controls) participated in this retrospective study. Gray matter images were extracted using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). In order to compare the conventional statistical analysis with deep-learning feature extraction, we built a classification model for DLB and AD with a residual neural network (ResNet) type of convolutional neural network architecture, which is one of the deep learning models. The anatomically standardized gray matter images extracted in the same way as for the VBM process were used as inputs, and the classification performance achieved by our model was evaluated.

RESULTS

Conventional statistical analysis detected no significant atrophy other than fine differences on the middle temporal pole and hippocampal regions. The feature extracted by the deep learning method differentiated DLB from AD with 79.15％ accuracy compared to the 68.41% of the conventional method.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results confirmed that the deep learning method with gray matter images can detect fine differences between DLB and AD that may be underestimated by the conventional method.

Canadian Consensus Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia (CCCDTD)5: Guidelines for management of vascular cognitive impairment

INTRODUCTION

Vascular disease is a common cause of dementia, and often coexists with other brain pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease to cause mixed dementia. Many of the risk factors for vascular disease are treatable. Our objective was to review evidence for diagnosis and treatment of vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) to issue recommendations to clinicians.

METHODS

A subcommittee of the Canadian Consensus Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia (CCCDTD) reviewed areas of emerging evidence. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system was used to assign the quality of the evidence and strength of the recommendations.

RESULTS

Using standardized diagnostic criteria, managing hypertension to conventional blood pressure targets, and reducing risk for stroke are strongly recommended. Intensive blood pressure lowering in middle-aged adults with vascular risk factors, using acetylsalicylic acid in persons with VCI and covert brain infarctions but not if only white matter lesions are present, and using cholinesterase inhibitors are weakly recommended.

CONCLUSIONS

The CCCDTD has provided evidence-based recommendations for diagnosis and management of VCI for use nationally in Canada, that may also be of use worldwide.

Cognition in Vascular Aging and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Cardiovascular health declines with age, due to vascular risk factors, and this leads to an increasing risk of cognitive decline. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is defined as the negative cognitive changes beyond what is expected in normal aging. The purpose of the study was to compare older adults with vascular risk factors (VRF), MCI patients, and healthy controls (HC) in main dimensions of cognitive control. The sample comprised a total of 109 adults, aged 50 to 85 (M = 66.09, S.D. = 9.02). They were divided into three groups: 1) older adults with VRF, 2) MCI patients, and 3) healthy controls (HC). VRF and MCI did not differ significantly in age, educational level, or gender as was the case with HC. The tests used mainly examine inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory processing. Results showed that the VRF group had more Set Loss Errors in drawing designs indicating deficits in establishing cognitive set and in cognitive shifting. MCI patients displayed lower performance in processing. Hence, different types of specific impairments emerge in vascular aging and MCI, and this may imply that discrete underlying pathologies may play a role in the development of somewhat different profiles of cognitive decline.

Approach to the Older Adult With New Cognitive Symptoms

Dementia affects nearly 50 million people worldwide, translating into one new case every 3 seconds. Dementia syndrome is one of the leading causes of disability among older adults, yet it remains vastly underdiagnosed. A timely diagnosis of dementia is essential to ensuring optimal care and support of individuals and their loved ones. Although there is no single test for dementia, health care providers can use a structured approach to the workup and management of new cognitive symptoms. Comprehensive MEDLINE and PubMed searches were performed to develop an unbiased, practical diagnostic approach to these symptoms. This review guides primary care providers in the workup, diagnosis, delivery, and initial management of patients presenting with new cognitive symptoms.

Changes in gray matter volume and functional connectivity in dementia with Lewy bodies compared to Alzheimer's disease and normal aging: implications for fluctuations

BACKGROUND

Fluctuations are one of the core clinical features characterizing dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). They represent a determining factor for its diagnosis and strongly impact the quality of life of patients and their caregivers. However, the neural correlates of this complex symptom remain poorly understood. This study aimed to investigate the structural and functional changes in DLB patients, compared to Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and healthy elderly subjects, and their potential links with fluctuations.

METHODS

Structural and resting-state functional MRI data were collected from 92 DLB patients, 70 AD patients, and 22 control subjects, who also underwent a detailed clinical examination including the Mayo Clinic Fluctuation Scale. Gray matter volume changes were analyzed using whole-brain voxel-based morphometry, and resting-state functional connectivity was investigated using a seed-based analysis, with regions of interest corresponding to the main nodes of the salience network (SN), frontoparietal network (FPN), dorsal attention network (DAN), and default mode network (DMN).

RESULTS

At the structural level, fluctuation scores in DLB patients did not relate to the atrophy of insular, temporal, and frontal regions typically found in this pathology, but instead showed a weak correlation with more subtle volume reductions in different regions of the cholinergic system. At the functional level, the DLB group was characterized by a decreased connectivity within the SN and attentional networks, while the AD group showed decreases within the SN and DMN. In addition, higher fluctuation scores in DLB patients were correlated to a greater connectivity of the SN with the DAN and left thalamus, along with a decreased connectivity between the SN and DMN, and between the right thalamus and both the FPN and DMN.

CONCLUSIONS

Functional connectivity changes, rather than significant gray matter loss, could play an important role in the emergence of fluctuations in DLB. Notably, fluctuations in DLB patients appeared to be related to a disturbed external functional connectivity of the SN, which may lead to less relevant transitions between different cognitive states in response to internal and environmental stimuli. Our results also suggest that the thalamus could be a key region for the occurrence of this symptom.

Cognitive fluctuations in Lewy body dementia: towards a pathophysiological framework

Fluctuating cognition is a complex and disabling symptom that is seen most frequently in the context of Lewy body dementias encompassing dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease dementia. In fact, since their description over three decades ago, cognitive fluctuations have remained a core diagnostic feature of dementia with Lewy bodies, the second most common dementia in the elderly. In the absence of reliable biomarkers for Lewy body pathology, the inclusion of such patients in therapeutic trials depends on the accurate identification of such core clinical features. Yet despite their diagnostic relevance, cognitive fluctuations remain poorly understood, in part due to the lack of a cohesive clinical and scientific explanation of the phenomenon itself. Motivated by this challenge, the present review examines the history, clinical phenomenology and assessment of cognitive fluctuations in the Lewy body dementias. Based on these data, the key neuropsychological, neurophysiological and neuroimaging correlates of cognitive fluctuations are described and integrated into a novel testable heuristic framework from which new insights may be gained.

Investigating the Association Between Verbal Forgetting and Pathological Markers of Alzheimer's and Lewy Body Diseases

BACKGROUND

The percentage of verbal forgetting (VF%) measure of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) has been proposed to differentiate patients diagnosed clinically with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).

OBJECTIVE

To determine if VF% aligns with gold-standard biomarker and autopsy evidence of AD and DLB neuropathology.

METHODS

Clinical, cognitive, sociodemographic, and biomarker data were collected from 315 patients with baseline cognitive impairment and 485 normal controls from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). AD markers included reduced cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid-β, elevated total-tau and phosphorylated-tau, hippocampal atrophy, and the presence of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles at autopsy. DLB markers included reduced CSF α-synuclein, preserved hippocampus, atrophied putamen, occipital glucose metabolism, and the presence of Lewy bodies at autopsy. Cognitively impaired participants were classified as ADVF% (n = 190) or DLBVF% (n = 125) based on their RAVLT VF% scores using a 75% cut-off (≥75%  = ADVF%, <75%  = DLBVF%). Postmortem data were available for 13 ADVF% participants, 13 DLBVF% patients, and six healthy controls.

RESULTS

ADVF% and DLBVF% participants did not differ on CSF or neuroimaging biomarkers, with the exception of total tau levels which were higher in ADVF%. In the subset of participants with autopsy data, comorbid AD and DLB pathology was most frequent in ADVF% participants, and pure DLB pathology was most frequent in DLBVF% participants, however, these differences were not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION

The RAVLT VF% measure does not reliably align with AD and DLB neuropathology in ADNI participants.

Amygdala sign, a FDG-PET signature of dementia with Lewy Bodies

BACKGROUND

Biomarkers are being used increasingly to support the diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Novel biomarkers that increase diagnostic specificity of DLB are needed. We assessed previously known FDG-PET occipital cortex hypometabolism, and cingulate island sign biomarkers of DLB against a novel amygdala signature.

METHODS

Retrospective analysis of 49 patients evaluated at one tertiary memory clinic. All had a FDG-PET brain scan performed as part of their diagnostic work up evaluating three common neurodegenerative etiologies: Alzheimer dementia (AD), Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and DLB. A consensus diagnosis of dementia was made based on accepted clinical criteria for AD, FTD and DLB. FDG-PET regional metabolism was delineated by automatic segmentation as well as manual tracing of amygdala and posterior cingulate volumes of interest. Mean normalized values calculated for regional FDG-PET signatures of DLB: occipital cortex hypometabolism and preservation of posterior cingulate and amygdala metabolism relative to whole brain metabolism were evaluated.

RESULTS

Significant overlap between DLB and AD patients (occipital, parietal, temporal and frontal hypometabolism) and between DLB and FTD (frontal hypometabolism and the posterior cingulate sign) were identified. Right amygdala (p = 0.028) and right posterior cingulate (p = 0.035) mean normalized regional metabolism levels were preserved in DLB compared to AD. Among subjects at less advanced stages of dementia (MoCA>10), relative preservation of regional metabolism was notable across both left (p = 0.006) and right (p = 0.020) amygdala.

CONCLUSION

Relative preservation of amygdala metabolism could complement previously described FDG-PET findings in earlier stages of DLB.

Effects of Lewy body disease and Alzheimer disease on brain atrophy and cognitive dysfunction

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the independent and interaction effects of Alzheimer disease (AD) and Lewy body disease (LBD) on cognition and brain atrophy.

METHODS

We consecutively recruited 38 controls and 108 patients with AD-related cognitive impairment (ADCI) and/or LBD-related cognitive impairment (LBCI) from university-based dementia and movement clinics. Diagnoses of ADCI and LBCI were supported by ¹⁸F-florbetaben PET and ¹⁸F-N-(3-fluoropropyl)-2β-carbon ethoxy-3β-(4-iodophenyl) nortropane-PET, respectively. There were 38 controls, 26 patients with pure ADCI (18 mild cognitive impairment [MCI] and 8 dementia), 28 patients with pure LBCI (13 MCI and 15 dementia), and 54 patients with mixed ADCI and LBCI (17 MCI and 37 dementia). We performed group-wise comparisons for neuropsychological z scores and regional cortical thickness. We also evaluated the effects of ADCI and LBCI using general linear models.

RESULTS

Compared to the controls, patients in the pure ADCI group and pure LBCI group had focused cortical thinning in the bilateral entorhinal/right anterior temporal cortices and bilateral anteromedial temporal/basal frontal cortices, respectively, while the mixed disease group had additional cortical thinning in the widespread association cortices. The independent effects of ADCI and LBCI on regional cortical thinning overlapped in the widespread association cortices, especially at the bilateral temporoparietal junction and parietal cortices. ADCI and LBCI had independent detrimental effects on the copying item of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test.

CONCLUSIONS

Concomitant ADCI and LBCI are associated with the accentuation of neurodegeneration to widespread association cortices, and both diseases contribute to visuospatial dysfunction.

Striatal DAT and extrastriatal SERT binding in early-stage Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, compared with healthy controls: An 123I-FP-CIT SPECT study

Parkinson's disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) are thought to be part of a spectrum: both have a clinical profile including symptoms associated with dopaminergic and serotonergic loss, yet few imaging studies have focused on serotonergic neurodegeneration in both disorders. We aimed to study degeneration of terminals with dopamine and serotonin transporter (DAT and SERT, respectively) in patients with early-stage PD and DLB relative to healthy controls, using ¹²³I-N-ω-fluoropropyl-2β-carbomethoxy-3β-(4-iodophenyl)nortropane (¹²³I-FP-CIT) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). We conducted region of interest (ROI) and voxel-based analyses on ¹²³I-FP-CIT SPECT scans. Using the cerebellum as a reference region, we determined binding ratios (BRs) for bilateral ROIs in the DAT-rich striatum (head of the caudate nucleus and posterior putamen) and SERT-rich extrastriatal brain regions (thalamus, hypothalamus and hippocampus). We compared BRs in PD and DLB patients with BRs in healthy controls (all groups: n = 16). Both PD and DLB patients had lower striatal ¹²³I-FP-CIT BRs than healthy controls for the bilateral caudate head (PD-left: F(1,29) = 28.778, P < .001, ω² = 0.35; right: F(1,29) = 35.338, P < .001, ω² = 0.42; DLB-left: F(1,29) = 28.241, P < .001, ω² = 0.31; right: F(1,29) = 18.811, P < .001, ω² = 0.26) and bilateral posterior putamen (PD-left: F(1,29) = 107.531, P < .001, ω² = 0.77; right: F(1,29) = 87.525, P < .001, ω² = 0.72; DLB-left: F(1,29) = 39.910, P < .001, ω² = 0.48; right: F(1,29) = 26.882, P < .001, ω² = 0.38). DLB patients had lower hypothalamic ¹²³I-FP-CIT BRs than healthy controls (F(1,29) = 6.059, P = .020, ω² = 0.12). In the voxel-based analysis, PD and DLB patients had significantly lower striatal binding than healthy controls. Both PD patients in the early disease stages and DLB patients have reduced availability of striatal DAT, and DLB patients lower hypothalamic SERT compared with healthy controls. These observations add to the growing body of evidence that PD and DLB are not merely dopaminergic diseases, thereby providing additional clinicopathological insights.

Differentiation Between Dementia With Lewy Bodies And Alzheimer's Disease Using Voxel-Based Morphometry Of Structural MRI: A Multicenter Study

BACKGROUND

The differential diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) is particularly important because DLB patients respond better to cholinesterase inhibitors but sometimes exhibit sensitivity to neuroleptics, which may cause worsening of clinical status. Antemortem voxel-based morphometry (VBM) using structural MRI has previously revealed that patients with DLB have normal hippocampal volume, but atrophy in the dorsal mesopontine area.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this multicenter study was to determine whether VBM of the brain stem in addition to that of medial temporal lobe structures improves the differential diagnosis of AD and DLB.

METHODS

We retrospectively chose 624 patients who were clinically diagnosed with either DLB (239 patients) or AD (385 patients) from 10 institutes using different MR scanners with different magnetic field strengths. In all cases, VBM was performed on 3D T1-weighted images. The degree of local atrophy was calculated using Z-score by comparison with a database of normal volumes of interest (VOIs) in medial temporal lobe (MTL) and the dorsal brain stem (DBS). The discrimination of DLB and AD was evaluated using Z-score values in these two VOIs. MRI data from 414 patients were used as the training data set to determine the classification criteria, with the MRI data from the remaining 210 patients used as the test data set.

RESULTS

The DLB and AD patients did not differ with respect to mean age or Mini-Mental State Examination scores. Z-index scores showed that there was significantly more atrophy in MTL of AD patients, compared to DLB patients and in DBS of DLB patients, compared to AD patients. The discrimination accuracies of VBM were 63.3% in the test data set and 73.4% in the training data set.

CONCLUSION

VBM of DBS in addition to that of MTL improves the differentiation of DLB and AD.

Structural and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Dementia With Lewy Bodies

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the second most common cause of neurodegenerative dementia after Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although diagnosis may be challenging, there is increasing evidence that the use of biomarkers according to 2017 revised criteria for diagnosis and management of dementia with Lewy bodies can increase diagnostic accuracy. Apart from nuclear medicine techniques, various magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques have been utilized in attempt to enhance diagnostic accuracy. This chapter reviews structural, functional and diffusion MRI studies in DLB cohorts being compared to healthy controls, AD or dementia in Parkinson's disease (PDD). We also included relatively new MRI methods that may have potential to identify early DLB subjects and aim at examining brain iron and neuromelanin.