Studies Conducted at University of Wisconsin on Alzheimer Disease Recently Reported (Associations Between Positron Emission Tomography Amyloid Pathology and Diffusion Tensor Imaging Brain Connectivity In Pre-clinical Alzheimer’s Disease)

2020 JAN 28 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Network Daily News -- A new study on Neurodegenerative Diseases and Conditions - Alzheimer Disease is now available. According to news reporting originating from Madison, Wisconsin, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Characterizing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) at pre-clinical stages is crucial for initiating early treatment strategies. It is widely accepted that amyloid accumulation is a primary pathological event in AD.”

Funders for this research include University of Wisconsin CIBM fellowship, Waisman Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, Center for Predictive and Computational Phenotyping (CPCP), Alzheimer’s Disease Connectome Project (ADCP), BRAIN Initiative.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the University of Wisconsin, “Also, loss of connectivity between brain regions is suspected of contributing to cognitive decline, but studies that test these associations using either local (i.e., individual edges) or global (i.e., modularity) connectivity measures may be limited. In this study, we utilized data acquired from 139 cognitively unimpaired participants. Sixteen gray matter (GM) regions known to be affected by AD were selected for analysis. For each of the 16 regions, the effect of amyloid burden, measured using Pittsburgh Compound B (PiB) positron emission tomography, on each of the 1761 brain network connections derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) connecting 162 GM regions, was investigated. Applying our unique multiresolution statistical analysis called the Wavelet Connectivity Signature (WaCS), this study demonstrates the relationship between amyloid burden and structural brain connectivity as assessed with DTI. Our statistical analysis using WaCS shows that in 15 of 16 GM regions, statistically significant relationships between amyloid burden in those regions and structural connectivity networks were observed. After applying multiple testing correction, 10 unique structural brain connections were found to be significantly associated with amyloid accumulation.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “For 7 of those 10 network connections, the decrease in their network connection strength indexed by fractional anisotropy was, in turn, associated with lower cognitive function, providing evidence that AD-related structural connectivity loss is a correlate of cognitive decline.”

For more information on this research see: Associations Between Positron Emission Tomography Amyloid Pathology and Diffusion Tensor Imaging Brain Connectivity In Pre-clinical Alzheimer’s Disease. Brain Connectivity, 2019;9(2):162-173. Brain Connectivity can be contacted at: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc, 140 Huguenot Street, 3RD Fl, New Rochelle, NY 10801, USA. (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. - www.liebertpub.com; Brain Connectivity - http://www.liebertpub.com/overview/brain-connectivity/389/)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting S.J. Hwang, University of Wisconsin, Dept. of Computer Sciences, 5770 Msc, 1300 Univ Ave, Madison, WI 53706, United States. Additional authors for this research include V. Singh, S.C. Johnson, B.B. Bendlin, N. Adluru and W.H. Kim.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1089/brain.2018.0590. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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