Tau Burden is Best Captured by Magnitude and Extent: Tau-MaX as a Measure of Global Tau.

ABSTRACT: Tau exhibits change in both spatial extent and density of pathology along the Alzheimer's disease (AD) spectrum with each aspect contributing to the overall burden of pathological tau. Nevertheless, studies using Tau PET have measured either magnitude using standardized uptake value ratios (SUVRs) or extent using number of Tau+ regions. We hypothesized that combining these two dimensions into a single measure of Magnitude and eXtent, Tau-MaX, would provide improved quantification of global tau burden as well as allowing for a region-agnostic measure of global tau burden that does not require a pre-specified region of interest (ROI) or meta-ROI. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed ¹⁸F-flortaucipir PET scans from local and national consortium data (n=1077 participants total) and

SUBMITTER: Brown CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11759618 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature