Vascular Lesions, APOE ε4, and Tau Pathology in Alzheimer Disease

We sought to determine the associations among cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), white matter rarefaction (WMR), circle of Willis atherosclerosis (CWA), and total microinfarct number with Braak neurofibrillary stage in postmortem individuals with and without Alzheimer disease (AD). Data from 355 cases of autopsied individuals with Braak stage I-VI who had antemortem consensus diagnoses of cognitively unimpaired (n = 183), amnestic mild cognitive impairment (n = 31), and AD dementia (n = 141) were used. The association between Braak stage and vascular lesions were individually assessed using multivariable linear regression that adjusted for age at death, APOE epsilon 4 carrier status, sex, education, and neuritic plaque density. CAA (p = 0.007) and WMR (p< 0.001) were associated with Braak stage, independent of amyloid load; microinfarct number and CWA showed no association. Analyses of the interactions between APOE epsilon 4 carrier status and vascular lesions found that greater WMR and positive epsilon 4 carrier status were associated with higher Braak stages. These results suggest that CAA and WMR are statistically linked to the severity of AD-related NFT pathology. The statistical link between WMR and NFT load may be strengthened by the presence of APOE epsilon 4 carrier status. An additional finding was that Lewy body pathology was most prevalent in higher Braak stages.

Automated summary

The study found associations between cerebral amyloid angiopathy and white matter rarefaction with Alzheimer-related neurofibrillary tangle pathology, while microinfarcts and circle of Willis atherosclerosis showed no association. The presence of APOE epsilon 4 carrier status may strengthen the link between white matter rarefaction and neurofibrillary tangle load in Alzheimer's disease.