Locus coeruleus-entorhinal cortex tract integrity is linked to plasma tau and glial fibrillary acidic protein.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Pretangle tau inclusions from the locus coeruleus (LC) are hypothesized to propagate to the entorhinal cortex (EC) via neuron-to-neuron transmission along its projections. The lower integrity of the LC-EC pathway accompanying Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology is supported by post mortem studies, but in vivo evidence remains limited.

Methods

We associated diffusion-weighted 7T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics of microstructural integrity within the LC-EC tract to plasma AD-related biomarkers in a cohort of 47 cognitively unimpaired adults.

Results

Worse overall and local LC-EC integrity, indicated by lower fractional anisotropy (FA) and higher mean diffusivity (MD), was related to elevated concentrations of plasma phosphorylated tau 181 (p-tau181)

SUBMITTER: Patsyuk Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12665172 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature