Rauchmann, B.-S., Ersözlü, E., Luedecke, D. et al. (2 more authors) (2025) Multimodal and longitudinal characterization of distinct tau and atrophy clusters in Alzheimer’s disease spectrum. Scientific Reports, 15 (1). 18142. ISSN 2045-2322
Abstract
Neuropathological and neuroimaging studies have identified several (endo-)phenotypes of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), suggesting a substantial heterogeneity in cerebral atrophy and tau spreading patterns. We included in our study a total of 320 participants, including healthy controls (N = 154) and patients across the AD spectrum (N = 166). We identified clusters of cerebral atrophy and tau PET uptake using a data-driven and similarity-based clustering approach, aiming to examine regional abnormality patterns in both modalities and differences in the clinical, cognitive, and biomarker characteristics among derived clusters. Abnormality patterns in tau PET and T1-weighted MRI within the same individuals revealed four distinct clusters for each imaging modality as surrogate markers of tau and neurodegeneration, respectively. The tau PET and atrophy clusters mainly showed substantial differences in their clustering allocations. While having the most severe biomarkers burden, the left temporal tau and diffuse atrophy clusters revealed the fastest clinical progression and steepest increase in tau PET uptake. Moreover, the diffuse atrophy cluster showed the fastest cortical volume loss, followed by the limbic-predominant atrophy cluster. Our results suggest characteristic differences between tau PET and atrophy clusters, especially for tau PET clusters, revealing more pronounced differences in cognitive profiles and disease biomarker trajectories than atrophy clusters.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Similarity-based Louvain clustering; Cognitive decline and dementia; Precision medicine; Phenotypical heterogeneity |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Medicine and Population Health |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 May 2025 14:27 |
Last Modified: | 27 May 2025 14:27 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41598-025-98338-9 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:227141 |