Abnormal amyloid and tau proteins may still be useful indicators of future Alzheimer's disease

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-07-31 03:25

Australia; International; VIC

The presence of abnormal amyloid and tau proteins may still be useful indicators of people most at risk of developing Alzheimer's, according to Australian and international research. The study showed that 33-to-83% of older people with abnormal amyloid and tau proteins developed Alzheimer's disease in two to three years, compared with less than 20% in other biomarker groups. That figure increased to 43-to-100% when they looked at people who also had some evidence of neurodegeneration. A recent report has suggested there was potential scientific misconduct in early Alzheimer’s studies which showed a link to these abnormal amyloid proteins. However, this study suggests the presence of abnormal amyloid and tau proteins may still be useful indications of people most at risk of developing Alzheimer's.

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conference: JAMA Network Open

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Organisation/s: The University of Melbourne, McGill University, Canada

Funder: Dr Strikwerda-Brown is supported by a joint postdoctoral fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Alzheimer’s Society of Canada (ASC), and Fonds de Recherche du Québec–Santé. Dr Hobbs is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr Gonneaud was supported by the StoP-AD Center, Quebec Bio-Imaging Network, Fondation Alzheimer, and Fondation de France.Mr St-Onge is supported by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund and Fonds de Recherche du Québec, awarded to the Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives initiative at McGill University. Dr Binette is supported by a Brightfocus Foundation postdoctoral fellowship. Dr Buckley is supported by a K99/R00 award from the National Institute on Aging (R00AG061238-03) and an Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship (AARF-20-675646). Dr Gordon is supported by the Alzheimer’s Association and NIH. Dr Villeneuve is supported by a Canada Research Chair and a Canada Fund for Innovation grant. PREVENT-AD was funded by the CIHR, Alzheimer’s Association, ASC, Brain Canada, McGill University, the government of Canada, an unrestricted gift from Pfizer Canada, the Canada Fund for Innovation, the Douglas Hospital Research Centre, and the Levesque Foundation, and Genome Quebec Innovation Center.

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