Abstract #1855

Diffusion of NAA as a marker for tau pathology in Alzheimer's disease - a combined diffusion weighted MRS and positron emission tomography study.

Nicola Spotorno¹, Markus Nilsson², Boel Hansson², Felix Andersson³, Antonie Leuzy³, Danielle van Westen², Oskar Hansson³, and Itamar Ronen⁴

¹Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, ³Department of clinical sciences Malmö, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, ⁴Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands

Intraneuronal tau accumulation is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Currently, positron emission tomography with tau specific ligands (Tau-PET) is the only neuroimaging method for measuring tau in AD. In this study that combines Tau-PET with diffusion weighted MRS we show that the apparent diffusion coefficient of NAA, a neuronal metabolite, is significantly lower in AD patients compared to healthy controls in a brain region that shows elevated levels of uptake of the tau-PET ligand. Standard MRS data shows elevated level of glial metabolites, suggesting concomitant gliosis of neuroinflamation. We propose ADC(tNAA) as a putative marker for tau aggregation in AD.

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