Impaired LC-NE System-A Novel Molecular Mechanism Underlying Health Disparity and Increased Prevalence of Alzheimer's Disease Among African Americans.

ABSTRACT: Background: The current biomarker classification system does not fully explain the increased prevalence of both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular risk factors for AD-such as diabetes and hypertension--among African Americans (AAs) compared to White participants. Research on cognitive aging has traditionally focused on how declines in cortical and hippocampal regions influence cognition. However, tau pathology emerges decades before amyloid pathology, initially appearing in the brainstem, particularly in the locus coeruleus (LC), the primary source of the brain's norepinephrine (NE). Further, postmortem studies suggest that the loss of LC neurons is a better predictor of AD symptom severity than amyloid-beta/neurofibrillary tangle pathology in any other brain region. Methods:<

SUBMITTER: Ding YS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12840106 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature