TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hoenig, Merle C
AU  - Bischof, Gérard N
AU  - Onur, Özgür A
AU  - Kukolja, Juraj
AU  - Jessen, Frank
AU  - Fliessbach, Klaus
AU  - Neumaier, Bernd
AU  - Fink, Gereon R
AU  - Kalbe, Elke
AU  - Drzezga, Alexander
AU  - Eimeren, Thilo
AU  - Initiative, Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging
TI  - Level of education mitigates the impact of tau pathology on neuronal function.
JO  - European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging
VL  - 46
IS  - 9
SN  - 1619-7070
CY  - Heidelberg [u.a.]
PB  - Springer-Verl.
M1  - DZNE-2020-07131
SP  - 1787-1795
PY  - 2019
AB  - Using PET imaging in a group of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), we investigated whether level of education, a proxy for resilience, mitigates the harmful impact of tau pathology on neuronal function.We included 38 patients with mild-to-moderate AD (mean age 67 ± 7 years, mean MMSE score 24 ± 4, mean years of education 14 ± 4; 20 men, 18 women) in whom a [18F]AV-1451 scan (a measure of tau pathology) and an [18F]FDG scan (a measure of neuronal function) were available. The preprocessed PET scans were z-transformed using templates for [18F]AV-1451 and [18F]FDG from healthy controls, and subsequently thresholded at a z-score of ≥3.0, representing an one-tailed p value of 0.001. Next, three volumes were computed in each patient: the tau-specific volume (tau pathology without neuronal dysfunction), the FDG-specific volume (neuronal dysfunction without tau pathology), and the overlap volume (tau pathology and neuronal dysfunction). Mean z-scores and volumes were extracted and used as dependent variables in regression analysis with years of education as predictor, and age and MMSE score as covariates.Years of education were positively associated with tau-specific volume (β = 0.362, p = 0.022), suggesting a lower impact of tau pathology on neuronal function in patients with higher levels of education. Concomitantly, level of education was positively related to tau burden in the overlap volume (β = 0.303, p = 0.036) implying that with higher levels of education more tau pathology is necessary to induce neuronal dysfunction.In patients with higher levels of education, tau pathology is less paralleled by regional and remote neuronal dysfunction. The data suggest that early life-time factors such as level of education support resilience mechanisms, which ameliorate AD-related effects later in life.
KW  - Aged
KW  - Alzheimer Disease: diagnostic imaging
KW  - Alzheimer Disease: metabolism
KW  - Alzheimer Disease: pathology
KW  - Alzheimer Disease: physiopathology
KW  - Educational Status
KW  - Female
KW  - Humans
KW  - Male
KW  - Neurons: pathology
KW  - Positron-Emission Tomography
KW  - tau Proteins: metabolism
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:31183635
DO  - DOI:10.1007/s00259-019-04342-3
UR  - https://pub.dzne.de/record/140809
ER  -