Article
Author: Macedo, Arthur C. ; Bellaver, Bruna ; Lussier, Firoza Z. ; Therriault, Joseph ; Aumont, Étienne ; Zimmer, Eduardo R. ; Chamoun, Mira ; Stevenson, Jenna ; Ismail, Zahinoor ; Pascoal, Tharick A. ; Rosa-Neto, Pedro ; Ferrari-Souza, João Pedro ; Fernandez-Arias, Jaime ; Vermeiren, Marie ; Socualaya, Kely Quispialaya ; Gauthier, Serge ; Rahmouni, Nesrine ; Vitali, Paolo ; Hosseini, Seyyed Ali ; Macedo, Arthur C ; Pascoal, Tharick A ; Ferreira, Pâmela C.L. ; Lussier, Firoza Z ; Ferreira, Pâmela C L ; Wang, Yi-Ting ; Leffa, Douglas Teixeira ; Servaes, Stijn ; Zimmer, Eduardo R ; Bezgin, Gleb ; Tissot, Cécile ; Ng, Kok Pin
In Alzheimer's disease (AD), neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) correlate with tau deposition in the brain. Here, we investigated the association of PET-based Braak stages with NPS and assessed whether they predict annual changes in NPS. We evaluated 231 individuals in the aging and AD continuum. Participants were assigned a Braak stage at baseline and followed for 1.97 (s.d. 0.62) years. NPS were investigated using the Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C) and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire severity (NPI-Q-S) and distress (NPI-Q-D) scales. Multiple linear regressions (MLR) assessed the association of Braak stages with baseline NPS and the annual change in NPS scores. At baseline, stages I-II, III-IV, and V-VI were associated with higher MBI-C, NPI-Q-S, and NPI-Q-D scores. Stages V-VI were associated with a significant annual increase in MBI-C scores. These findings suggest that tau accumulation may manifest clinically with an increase in NPS, which seems to be an early event in AD pathophysiology. Moreover, PET-based Braak staging appears to be a good predictor of NPS severity progression.