White matter integrity is associated with cognition and amyloid burden in older adult Koreans along the Alzheimer's disease continuum

• Published in: Alzheimer's research & therapy Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 218 - 11
• Main Authors: Hirschfeld, Lauren R, Deardorff, Rachael, Chumin, Evgeny J, Wu, Yu-Chien, McDonald, Brenna C, Cao, Sha, Risacher, Shannon L, Yi, Dahyun, Byun, Min Soo, Lee, Jun-Young, Kim, Yu Kyeong, Kang, Koung Mi, Sohn, Chul-Ho, Nho, Kwangsik, Saykin, Andrew J, Lee, Dong Young
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 16.12.2023; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Aged; Alzheimer Disease - complications; Alzheimer Disease - diagnostic imaging; Alzheimer's disease; Amyloidogenic Proteins; Care and treatment; Cingulum bundle of the hippocampus; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Cognitive Dysfunction - complications; Cognitive Dysfunction - diagnostic imaging; Dementia; Demographic aspects; Diffusion Tensor Imaging; Ethnicity; Health aspects; Hispanic Americans; Humans; Memory; Mild cognitive impairment; Older people; Parahippocampal region; Physiological aspects; Republic of Korea - epidemiology; White matter; White Matter - diagnostic imaging; Republic of Korea; South Korea; Indiana; United States > US; Cognition; Alzheimer’s disease; Cingulum bundle of the hippocampus; Mild cognitive impairment; White matter
• ISSN: 1758-9193; 1758-9193
• DOI: 10.1186/s13195-023-01369-5

White matter (WM) microstructural changes in the hippocampal cingulum bundle (CBH) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been described in cohorts of largely European ancestry but are lacking in other populations. We assessed the relationship between CBH WM integrity and cognition or amyloid burden in 505 Korean older adults aged ≥ 55 years, including 276 cognitively normal older adults (CN), 142 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 87 AD patients, recruited as part of the Korean Brain Aging Study for the Early Diagnosis and Prediction of Alzheimer's disease (KBASE) at Seoul National University. Compared to CN, AD and MCI subjects showed significantly higher RD, MD, and AxD values (all p-values < 0.001) and significantly lower FA values (left p ≤ 0.002, right p ≤ 0.015) after Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons. Most tests of cognition and mood (p < 0.001) as well as higher medial temporal amyloid burden (p < 0.001) were associated with poorer WM integrity in the CBH after Bonferroni adjustment. These findings are consistent with patterns of WM microstructural damage previously reported in non-Hispanic White (NHW) MCI/AD cohorts, reinforcing existing evidence from predominantly NHW cohort studies.