Publications by authors named "Tobey J Betthauser"

Introduction: Patterns of signal from tau positron emission tomography (tau-PET) confined to the medial temporal lobe (MTL) or extended into the neocortex may be relevant for Alzheimer's disease (AD) research if they are linked to differential biomarker levels and cognitive decline.

Methods: Visual assessment of Tau-PET [F-18]florquinitau (FQT) exams from 728 initially non-demented older adults yielded four uptake groups: tau-negative (T-), MTL-only (T+), neocortex-only (T+), or both (T+). Mixed effects models assessed group differences in retrospective cognitive and plasma pTau217 trajectories.

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Background: Klotho, encoded by the gene, is an anti-aging and neuroprotective protein. KL-VS heterozygosity (KL-VS) is hypothesized to be protective against the accumulation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) neuropathological hallmarks (amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau).

Objective: We examine whether being positive for Aβ (A+) or tau (T+), or A/T joint status [positive for Aβ (A + T-), tau (A-T+), both (A + T+) or neither (A-T-)] vary by KL-VS and whether serum klotho protein levels vary based on A+, T+, or A/T status in a cohort enriched for AD risk.

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Background: Blood-based disease staging across the Alzheimer's disease (AD) continuum holds the promise to identify individuals that profit from disease-modifying therapies. We set out to identify Braak V (Braak V and/or VI) tau PET-positive individuals within amyloid-β (Aβ)-positive individuals using plasma biomarkers.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we assessed 289 individuals from the TRIAD cohort and 306 individuals from the WRAP study across the AD continuum.

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Article Synopsis
  • Cognitive resilience is when people don't show mental decline even if they have signs of Alzheimer's in their brains.
  • Measuring cognitive resilience is tricky because it can't be seen directly, and one common method used might give wrong results.
  • The new method we suggest uses machine learning to improve how we measure cognitive resilience, making it more accurate and relying less on guesses about the data.
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Background: Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) dynamics are increasingly studied in aging and neurological disorders. Models of CSF-mediated waste clearance suggest that altered CSF dynamics could play a role in the accumulation of toxic waste in the CNS, with implications for Alzheimer's disease and other proteinopathies. Therefore, approaches that enable quantitative and volumetric assessment of CSF flow velocities could be of value.

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Introduction: Tau-positron emission tomography (PET) outcome data of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) cannot currently be meaningfully compared or combined when different tracers are used due to differences in tracer properties, instrumentation, and methods of analysis.

Methods: Using head-to-head data from five cohorts with tau PET radiotracers designed to target tau deposition in AD, we tested a joint propagation model (JPM) to harmonize quantification (units termed "CenTauR" [CTR]). JPM is a statistical model that simultaneously models the relationships between head-to-head and anchor point data.

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Introduction: Understanding longitudinal change in key plasma biomarkers will aid in detecting presymptomatic Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Methods: Serial plasma samples from 424 Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention participants were analyzed for phosphorylated-tau217 (p-tau217; ALZpath) and other AD biomarkers, to study longitudinal trajectories in relation to disease, health factors, and cognitive decline. Of the participants, 18.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the relationship between motor function and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology, particularly looking at brain regions involved in motor control.
  • In a sample of 206 participants, findings revealed that increased neurodegeneration and AD biomarkers (like amyloid and tau) were linked to worse motor skills, specifically dexterity and walking speed.
  • The results suggest that declines in dexterity associated with AD could indicate potential areas for non-drug therapies to improve motor function in affected individuals.
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Recent longitudinal PET imaging studies have established methods to estimate the age at which amyloid becomes abnormal at the level of the individual. Here we recontextualized amyloid levels into the temporal domain to better understand the downstream Alzheimer's disease processes of tau neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) accumulation and cognitive decline. This cohort study included a total of 601 individuals from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention and Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center that underwent amyloid and tau PET, longitudinal neuropsychological assessments and met clinical criteria for three clinical diagnosis groups: cognitively unimpaired (n = 537); mild cognitive impairment (n = 48); or dementia (n = 16).

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Article Synopsis
  • Published norms typically miss early cognitive changes linked to dementia, prompting the development of new standards using data from two Alzheimer's risk cohorts.
  • The research utilized quantitative regression to create both cross-sectional and longitudinal normative standards based on data from nearly 1,400 cognitively healthy participants over an average of 9 years.
  • Findings indicate that lower percentile scores correlate with cognitive impairment and higher Alzheimer’s biomarker levels, while a ShinyApp was created to help visualize scores and identify low performance.
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Background: The sensitivity of amyloid to pre-analytic factors complicates cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) diagnostics for Alzheimer disease. We report reliability and validity evidence for automated immunoassays from frozen and fresh CSF samples in an ongoing, single-site research program.

Methods: CSF samples were obtained from 2 Wisconsin cohorts (1256 measurements; 727 participants).

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Cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias typically begins long before clinical impairment. Identifying people experiencing subclinical decline may facilitate earlier intervention. This study developed cognitive trajectory clusters using longitudinally based random slope and change point parameter estimates from a Preclinical Alzheimer's disease Cognitive Composite and examined how baseline and most recently available clinical/health-related characteristics, cognitive statuses and biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease and vascular disease varied across these cognitive clusters.

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Age-related disease may be mediated by low levels of chronic inflammation ("inflammaging"). Recent work suggests that gut microbes can contribute to inflammation via degradation of the intestinal barrier. While aging and age-related diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD) are linked to altered microbiome composition and higher levels of gut microbial components in systemic circulation, the role of intestinal inflammation remains unclear.

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Neuropsychological measures sensitive to decline in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer's disease are needed. We previously demonstrated that higher amyloid-beta (Aβ) assessed by positron emission tomography in adults without cognitive impairment was associated with recall of fewer proper names in Logical Memory story recall. The current study investigated the association between proper names and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers (Aβ, phosphorylated tau [pTau], neurofilament light) in 223 participants from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention.

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Article Synopsis
  • Individuals with Down syndrome are almost guaranteed to develop Alzheimer's disease, making it crucial to study biomarkers related to the disease for effective clinical interventions.
  • A study involving 177 adults with Down syndrome used advanced imaging techniques to monitor amyloid-beta and tau proteins, finding that elevated tau levels occurred in all brain regions where NFTs (neurofibrillary tangles) develop after amyloid positivity.
  • The research shows that amyloid accumulates rapidly in Down syndrome, with tau increases appearing soon after—a finding that helps to chart the progression of Alzheimer's specifically in this population, rather than relying on age alone.
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Importance: Knowledge is lacking on the prevalence and prognosis of individuals with a β-amyloid-negative, tau-positive (A-T+) cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker profile.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of a CSF A-T+ biomarker profile and investigate its clinical implications.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This was a retrospective cohort study of the cross-sectional multicenter University of Gothenburg (UGOT) cohort (November 2019-January 2021), the longitudinal multicenter Alzheimer Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort (individuals with mild cognitive impairment [MCI] and no cognitive impairment; September 2005-May 2022), and 2 Wisconsin cohorts, Wisconsin Alzheimer Disease Research Center and Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer Prevention (WISC; individuals without cognitive impairment; February 2007-November 2020).

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: Process-based scores of episodic memory tests, such as the recency ratio (Rr), have been found to compare favourably to, or to be better than, most conventional or "traditional" scores employed to estimate memory ability in older individuals (Bock et al., 2021; Bruno et al., 2019).

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An accurate blood test for Alzheimer's disease that is sensitive to preclinical proteinopathy and cognitive decline has clear implications for early detection and secondary prevention. We assessed the performance of plasma phosphorylated tau 217 ( ) against brain PET markers of amyloid [ -labelled Pittsburgh compound B (PiB)] and tau ( MK-6240) and its utility for predicting longitudinal cognition. Samples were analysed from a subset of participants with up to 8 years follow-up in the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention (WRAP; 2001-present; plasma 2011-present), a longitudinal cohort study of adults from midlife, enriched for parental history of Alzheimer's disease.

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Importance: Postmenopausal females represent around 70% of all individuals with Alzheimer disease. Previous literature shows elevated levels of tau in cognitively unimpaired postmenopausal females compared with age-matched males, particularly in the setting of high β-amyloid (Aβ). The biological mechanisms associated with higher tau deposition in female individuals remain elusive.

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Background: Insulin resistance (IR) and type 2 diabetes have been found to increase the risk for Alzheimer's clinical syndrome in epidemiologic studies but have not been associated with tau tangles in neuropathological research and have been inconsistently associated with cerebrospinal fluid P-tau181. IR and type 2 diabetes are well-recognized vascular risk factors. Some studies suggest that cardiovascular risk may act synergistically with cortical amyloid to increase tau measured using tau PET.

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Previous studies suggest associations between self-reported sleep problems and poorer health, cognition, Alzheimer's disease pathology and dementia-related outcomes. It is important to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between these complications and sleep disturbance, a modifiable risk factor, in late midlife, a time when Alzheimer's disease pathology may be accruing. The objectives of this study included application of unsupervised machine learning procedures to identify distinct subgroups of persons with problematic sleep and the association of these subgroups with concurrent measures of mental and physical health, cognition and PET-identified amyloid.

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Importance: Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology starts with a prolonged phase of β-amyloid (Aβ) accumulation without symptoms. The duration of this phase differs greatly among individuals. While this disease phase has high relevance for clinical trial designs, it is currently unclear how to best predict the onset of clinical progression.

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Blood biomarkers indicative of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology are altered in both preclinical and symptomatic stages of the disease. Distinctive biomarkers may be optimal for the identification of AD pathology or monitoring of disease progression. Blood biomarkers that correlate with changes in cognition and atrophy during the course of the disease could be used in clinical trials to identify successful interventions and thereby accelerate the development of efficient therapies.

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