Gray matter gamma-hydroxy-butyric acid and glutamate reflect beta-amyloid burden at old age.

Unlabelled: Gamma-hydroxy-butyric acid (GABA) and glutamate are neurotransmitters with essential importance for cognitive processing. Here, we investigate relationships between GABA, glutamate, and brain ß-amyloid (Aß) burden before clinical manifestation of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Thirty cognitively healthy adults (age 69.

Onset of Postural Instability in Parkinson's Disease Depends on Age rather than Disease Duration.

Background: Postural instability and falls are considered a major factor of impaired quality of life in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (PD). The knowledge of the time at which postural instability occurs will help to provide the evidence required to introduce fall-prevention strategies at the right time in PD.

Objective: To investigate whether postural instability of patients with different age at disease onset is associated with age or with disease duration of PD.

Sleep spindle and slow wave activity in Parkinson disease with excessive daytime sleepiness.

Study Objectives: Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a common and devastating symptom in Parkinson disease (PD), but surprisingly most studies showed that EDS is independent from nocturnal sleep disturbance measured with polysomnography. Quantitative electroencephalography (EEG) may reveal additional insights by measuring the EEG hallmarks of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, namely slow waves and spindles. Here, we tested the hypothesis that EDS in PD is associated with nocturnal sleep disturbance revealed by quantitative NREM sleep EEG markers.

Low Subicular Volume as an Indicator of Dementia-Risk Susceptibility in Old Age.

Introduction: Hippocampal atrophy is an established Alzheimer's Disease (AD) biomarker. Volume loss in specific subregions as measurable with ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may reflect earliest pathological alterations.

Methods: Data from positron emission tomography (PET) for estimation of cortical amyloid β (Aβ) and high-resolution 7 Tesla T1 MRI for assessment of hippocampal subfield volumes were analyzed in 61 non-demented elderly individuals who were divided into risk-categories as defined by high levels of cortical Aβ and low performance in standardized episodic memory tasks.

Benchmarking Real-Time Algorithms for In-Phase Auditory Stimulation of Low Amplitude Slow Waves With Wearable EEG Devices During Sleep.

Objective: In-phase stimulation of EEG slow waves (SW) during deep sleep has shown to improve cognitive function. SW enhancement is particularly desirable in subjects with low-amplitude SW such as older adults or patients suffering from neurodegeneration. However, existing algorithms to estimate the up-phase of EEG suffer from a poor phase accuracy at low amplitudes and when SW frequencies are not constant.

Reduced Regional NREM Sleep Slow-Wave Activity Is Associated With Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson Disease.

Growing evidence implicates a distinct role of disturbed slow-wave sleep in neurodegenerative diseases. Reduced non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep slow-wave activity (SWA), a marker of slow-wave sleep intensity, has been linked with age-related cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease pathology. However, it remains debated if SWA is associated with cognition in Parkinson disease (PD).

Slow-wave sleep and motor progression in Parkinson disease.

Growing evidence from Alzheimer disease supports a potentially beneficial role of slow-wave sleep in neurodegeneration. However, the importance of slow-wave sleep in Parkinson disease is unknown. In 129 patients with Parkinson disease, we retrospectively tested whether sleep slow waves, objectively quantified with polysomnography, relate to longitudinal changes in Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale motor scores.

Increased cerebral blood volume in small arterial vessels is a correlate of amyloid-β-related cognitive decline.

The protracted accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) is a major pathologic hallmark of Alzheimer's disease and may trigger secondary pathological processes that include neurovascular damage. This study was aimed at investigating long-term effects of Aβ burden on cerebral blood volume of arterioles and pial arteries (CBVa), possibly present before manifestation of dementia. Aβ burden was assessed by 11C Pittsburgh compound-B positron emission tomography in 22 controls and 18 persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), [ages: 75(±6) years].

Brain amyloid burden and cerebrovascular disease are synergistically associated with neurometabolism in cognitively unimpaired older adults.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of cognitive dysfunction in older adults. The pathological hallmarks of AD such as beta amyloid (Aβ) aggregation and neurometabolic change, as indicated by altered myo-inositol (mI) and N-acetylaspartate (NAA) levels, typically precede the onset of cognitive dysfunction by years. Furthermore, cerebrovascular disease occurs early in AD, but the interplay between vascular and neurometabolic brain change is largely unknown.

Memory performance-related dynamic brain connectivity indicates pathological burden and genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Background: The incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) strongly relates to advanced age and progressive deposition of cerebral amyloid-beta (Aβ), hyperphosphorylated tau, and iron. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between cerebral dynamic functional connectivity and variability of long-term cognitive performance in healthy, elderly subjects, allowing for local pathology and genetic risk.

Methods: Thirty seven participants (mean (SD) age 74 (6.

Low episodic memory performance in cognitively normal elderly subjects is associated with increased posterior cingulate gray matter N-acetylaspartate: a H MRSI study at 7 Tesla.

Low episodic memory performance characterizes elderly subjects at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and may reflect neuronal dysfunction within the posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus (PCP) region. To investigate a potential association between cerebral neurometabolism and low episodic memory in the absence of cognitive impairment, tissue-specific magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging at ultrahigh field strength of 7 Tesla was used to investigate the PCP region in a healthy elderly study population (n = 30, age 70 ± 5.7 years, Mini-Mental State Examination 29.

Regional Fluid-Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR) at 7 Tesla correlates with amyloid beta in hippocampus and brainstem of cognitively normal elderly subjects.

Background: Accumulation of amyloid beta (Aβ) may occur during healthy aging and is a risk factor for Alzheimer Disease (AD). While individual Aβ-accumulation can be measured non-invasively using Pittsburgh Compund-B positron emission tomography (PiB-PET), Fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) is a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) sequence, capable of indicating heterogeneous age-related brain pathologies associated with tissue-edema. In the current study cognitively normal elderly subjects were investigated for regional correlation of PiB- and FLAIR intensity.