Association of cardiovascular risk and sex with cortical tau deposition in cognitively normal and at‐risk Alzheimer’s subjects

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundEpidemiological data shows co‐incidence of cardiovascular (CV) disease and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), however the relationship between CV risk and specific AD biomarkers is not clear. Both CV disease and AD affect men and women differently. Here, we investigated the relationship between CV risk and cortical tau deposition in two regions, the entorhinal cortex (ETC) and the inferior temporal cortex (ITC). We hypothesised that high CV risk will be associated with increased cortical tau deposition.MethodCross‐sectional data of 197 subjects (mean age 78.4, 113 male, 84 female, 107 cognitively normal) who underwent AV‐1451 tau PET imaging were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. CV risk was calculated using the Framingham Heart Study 10‐year risk score for Cardiovascular Disease (FHS‐CVD) modified for age. Regional AV‐1451 uptake between the low‐risk (bottom 25% of the sample) and high‐risk (top 25%) subjects was compared.ResultHigh‐risk men showed significantly higher AV‐1451 uptake than their low‐risk counterparts in both the ETC (p=0.002) and in the ITC (p=0.02). After adjusting for age as a covariate, the difference remained significant for the ETC, but not the ITC. High‐risk and low‐risk women did not differ significantly in AV‐1451 uptake in neither of the regions studied.ConclusionThe results show that high CV risk is associated with increased cortical tau deposition in men, but not in women. These findings highlight the sex differences in AD trajectory and the need for stratification of subjects by sex in clinical trials.