Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-3-2018
Journal
Cell Reports
Volume
24
Issue
1
First Page
38
Last Page
46
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1016/j.celrep.2018.06.001
Abstract
© 2018 The Author(s) The cholinergic neurons of the basal forebrain (BF) provide virtually all of the brain's cortical and amygdalar cholinergic input. They are particularly vulnerable to neuropathology in early Alzheimer's disease (AD) and may trigger the emergence of neuropathology in their cortico-amygdalar projection system through cholinergic denervation and trans-synaptic spreading of misfolded proteins. We examined whether longitudinal degeneration within the BF can explain longitudinal cortico-amygdalar degeneration in older human adults with abnormal cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of AD neuropathology. We focused on two BF subregions, which are known to innervate cortico-amygdalar regions via two distinct macroscopic cholinergic projections. To further assess whether structural degeneration of these regions in AD reflects cholinergic denervation, we used the [ 18 F] FEOBV radiotracer, which binds to cortico-amygdalar cholinergic terminals. We found that the two BF subregions explain spatially distinct patterns of cortico-amygdalar degeneration, which closely reflect their cholinergic projections, and overlap with [ 18 F] FEOBV indices of cholinergic denervation.
Notes
Copyright 2018 The Author(s).This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Publisher's version at:
Schmitz TW, Mur M, Aghourian M, Bedard MA, Spreng RN; Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Longitudinal Alzheimer's Degeneration Reflects the Spatial Topography of Cholinergic Basal Forebrain Projections. Cell Rep. 2018 Jul 3;24(1):38-46. DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.06.001.