Tau-PET imaging and subregional atrophy in medial temporal lobe

We recently examined potential relationship between tau protein uptake in medial temporal lobe (MTL) and volumetric measures of MTL subregions in a small dataset of Alzheimer’s disease patients. Since tau protein accumulates in MTL in a characteristic spatiotempoal pattern as described by Braak and Braak, which ultimately may result in neurodegeneration and volume loss, we expected to see a correlation between tau uptake measured using tau PET imaging, and volume measured from high-resolution structural MRI using ASHS. Indeed, we found that earliest region to receive tau pathology, BA35 which is part of perirhinal cortex, has a strong relationship between tau uptake and structural atrophy. These data were presented at AAIC 2016, and a manuscript is currently under review.