Abstract #4028

Simultaneous assessment of cerebral iron load, as estimated by Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping, and Amyloid-β plaque density, as measured by 18F-Flutametamol, in Super-agers

Jiri M.G. van Bergen¹, Xu Li², Frances C. Quevenco¹, Anton F. Gietl¹, Valerie Treyer^1,3, Rafael Meyer¹, Sandra E. Leh¹, Alfred Buck³, Roger Nitsch¹, Peter C.M. van Zijl², Christoph Hock¹, and Paul G. Unschuld¹

¹Psychiatry Research and Psychogeriatric Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, ²F.M. Kirby center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ³Division of Nuclear Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

We investigated “super-agers” (a minority of elderly subjects that display significantly higher cognitive performance levels) for the interaction of Aβ-plaque burden and iron load, using Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping and simultaneous 18F-Flutametamol measures in the PET-MR. We found significant increased iron load in the putamen and caudate nucleus of subjects with a high Aβ-plaque burden, but no regional correlations between the two markers in gray matter. This suggests that while super-agers are affected by common age-related brain pathologies, such as cortical Aβ-plaque burden and increased striatal iron load, these might exert less neurotoxic damage.

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