Locus coeruleus tau validates and informs high-resolution MRI in aging and at earliest Alzheimer's pathology stages.

ABSTRACT: The locus coeruleus (LC) has been identified as a site that develops phosphorylated tau pathology earlier than cerebral cortex. We present data using high-resolution postmortem MRI and validated tau histopathology in controls and the earliest Braak and Braak (BB) stages (BBI-BBII) in LC. The high-resolution ex vivo MRI provides a 3D volume (quantitative), while the histology reveals tau specificity and severity burden (semi-quantitative). We mapped our highly regionally specific LC data onto high-resolution 3D MRI reconstructions of the same samples used in histology (n = 11). We noted significant structural subatrophy between BB 0 and II (30.0% smaller volumes, p = 0.0381), a trend which primarily affected the rostral-most LC (49.2% smaller average volume, p = 0.0381). We show histopathol

SUBMITTER: Hary AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11871710 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature