Association of latent factors of neuroinflammation with Alzheimer's disease pathology and longitudinal cognitive decline

INTRODUCTION We investigated the association of inflammatory mechanisms with markers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology and rates of cognitive decline in the AD spectrum.

METHODS We studied 296 cases from the Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study (DELCODE) cohort, and an extension cohort of 276 cases of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative study. Using Bayesian confirmatory factor analysis, we constructed latent factors for synaptic integrity, microglia, cerebrovascular endothelial function, cytokine/chemokine, and complement components of the inflammatory response using a set of inflammatory markers in cerebrospinal fluid.

RESULTS We found strong evidence for an association of synaptic integrity, microglia response, and cerebrovascular endothelial function with a latent factor of AD pathology and with rates of cognitive decline. We found evidence against an association of complement and cytokine/chemokine factors with AD pathology and rates of cognitive decline.

DISCUSSION Latent factors provided access to directly unobservable components of the neuroinflammatory response and their association with AD pathology and cognitive decline.