Neurodegeneration
Can a new PET imaging tracer distinguish different tau diseases?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
A new brain scanning chemical successfully maps and tells apart two different types of degenerative brain disorders based on where protein tangles build up.
Key findings
The scans differentiated patients with Alzheimer's from those with progressive supranuclear palsy with 94.1% accuracy, showing high tracer binding in cortical regions for Alzheimer's and in the midbrain and basal ganglia for progressive supranuclear palsy. However, post-mortem analyses revealed that while the tracer bound specifically to the classic tau tangles of Alzheimer's, its binding in progressive supranuclear palsy and healthy control tissues was largely non-specific and off-target.
Methodology
The researchers scanned 19 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy, nine patients with Alzheimer's disease, six patients with mild cognitive impairment who had positive amyloid biomarker scans, and thirteen healthy controls using a PET tracer to map tau protein deposits in the brain. They also analyzed post-mortem brain tissues from three deceased donors—one with Alzheimer's, one with progressive supranuclear palsy, and one healthy control—to compare the scan results with physical brain samples.
Limitations
This study was cross-sectional, meaning it cannot demonstrate how the tracer's binding changes over time or how it would react to treatments. Furthermore, the findings are limited by the small sample sizes, particularly in the Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment groups. The study also could not identify the specific molecules causing the off-target tracer binding observed in the basal ganglia, which occurred even though post-mortem analysis showed no neuromelanin-containing cells there.
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