The cognitive aging field has long debated whether presymptomatic brain disease accounts for a proportion of what is considered to be normal age-related cognitive decline. This is most notable in relation to Alzheimer's disease (AD) not only because it is a highly prevalent age-associated condition, but also because several features of AD are seen in normal aging. In particular, decline in episodic memory, deposition of ?- amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangle-related hippocampal atrophy are all aspects of AD that are also common in cognitively intact older people. However, the effects of AD pathology are not straightforward and are likely to be mediated by intervening factors that can be characterized as vulnerability and reserve. Within the past several years, scientific advances have allowed the measurement of the multiple processes that may be involved in this model of age-related memory loss. Thus, it is possible to measure ?-amyloid with positron emission tomography (PET) and the amyloid imaging agent [11C] Pittsburgh Compound B (PIB), to assess neurofibrillary tangle burden and hippocampal atrophy with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and to assess reserve processes with PET measures of glucose metabolism (using [18F]-Flurodeoxyglucose, or FDG) and with functional MRI (fMRI). In this project, a group of 125 older cognitively intact individuals will be recruited over 5 years, carefully characterized in terms of overall cognition and episodic memory, and studied with PIB- and FDG-PET imaging and structural MRI. A subgroup of 50 of these subjects, along with 50 healthy young subjects will be studied with fMRI and an event-related behavioral paradigm that contrasts brain activity during successfully remembered and forgotten items. A major question is whether, and how, older people without evidence of ?- amyloid deposition or hippocampal atrophy differ from older people with these characteristics, and from younger people. In addition key hypotheses will be tested in continuous multivariate models in which PET measures of ?-amyloid and MR measures of hippocampal atrophy are expected to be related to poorer episodic memory function, while resting prefrontal glucose metabolism will attenuate this relationship. Similar findings are expected during cognitive activity using fMRI, in which diminished brain activity in the medial temporal lobes may be related to ?-amyloid deposition, and better performance may be related to increased prefrontal cortical activation. Finally, a subgroup of subjects will be re-evaluated at a 2-year interval to see whether these measures predict change over time in cognition. In total, this project will both provide a description of optimal cognitive aging independent of brain amyloid deposition, and will begin to unravel the mechanisms associated with the loss and preservation of memory function in aging.

Public Health Relevance

This project will assess whether and how Alzheimer's disease may account for the memory loss experienced by healthy normal older people. This is important both for understanding relationships between AD and normal aging, and for developing ways of optimizing brain function in aging.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG034570-05
Application #
8531811
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZAG1-ZIJ-5 (M2))
Program Officer
Wagster, Molly V
Project Start
2009-09-15
Project End
2014-08-31
Budget Start
2013-09-01
Budget End
2014-08-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2013
Total Cost
$611,278
Indirect Cost
$239,432
Name
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Department
Neurosciences
Type
Organized Research Units
DUNS #
078576738
City
Berkeley
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94720
Winer, Joseph R; Maass, Anne; Pressman, Peter et al. (2018) Associations Between Tau, ?-Amyloid, and Cognition in Parkinson Disease. JAMA Neurol 75:227-235
Harrison, Theresa M; Maass, Anne; Baker, Suzanne L et al. (2018) Brain morphology, cognition, and ?-amyloid in older adults with superior memory performance. Neurobiol Aging 67:162-170
Arnemann, Katelyn L; Stöber, Franziska; Narayan, Sharada et al. (2018) Metabolic brain networks in aging and preclinical Alzheimer's disease. Neuroimage Clin 17:987-999
Iaccarino, Leonardo; Tammewar, Gautam; Ayakta, Nagehan et al. (2018) Local and distant relationships between amyloid, tau and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's Disease. Neuroimage Clin 17:452-464
Zhu, Yunzhang; Li, Lexin (2018) Multiple Matrix Gaussian Graphs Estimation. J R Stat Soc Series B Stat Methodol 80:927-950
Maass, Anne; Lockhart, Samuel N; Harrison, Theresa M et al. (2018) Entorhinal Tau Pathology, Episodic Memory Decline, and Neurodegeneration in Aging. J Neurosci 38:530-543
Helfrich, Randolph F; Mander, Bryce A; Jagust, William J et al. (2018) Old Brains Come Uncoupled in Sleep: Slow Wave-Spindle Synchrony, Brain Atrophy, and Forgetting. Neuron 97:221-230.e4
Adams, Jenna N; Lockhart, Samuel N; Li, Lexin et al. (2018) Relationships Between Tau and Glucose Metabolism Reflect Alzheimer's Disease Pathology in Cognitively Normal Older Adults. Cereb Cortex :
La Joie, Renaud; Ayakta, Nagehan; Seeley, William W et al. (2018) Multisite study of the relationships between antemortem [11C]PIB-PET Centiloid values and postmortem measures of Alzheimer's disease neuropathology. Alzheimers Dement :
Leal, Stephanie L; Lockhart, Samuel N; Maass, Anne et al. (2018) Subthreshold Amyloid Predicts Tau Deposition in Aging. J Neurosci 38:4482-4489

Showing the most recent 10 out of 68 publications