Abstract
Clinical trials focusing on therapeutic candidates that modify β-amyloid (Aβ) have repeatedly failed to treat Alzheimer’s disease (AD), suggesting that Aβ may not be the optimal target for treating AD. The evaluation of Aβ, tau, and neurodegenerative (A/T/N) biomarkers has been proposed for classifying AD. However, it remains unclear whether disturbances in each arm of the A/T/N framework contribute equally throughout the progression of AD. Here, using the random forest machine learning method to analyze participants in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative dataset, we show that A/T/N biomarkers show varying importance in predicting AD development, with elevated biomarkers of Aβ and tau better predicting early dementia status, and biomarkers of neurodegeneration, especially glucose hypometabolism, better predicting later dementia status. Our results suggest that AD treatments may also need to be disease stage-oriented with Aβ and tau as targets in early AD and glucose metabolism as a target in later AD.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-6-2020
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-1079-x
Funding Information
This research was supported by NIH grants R01AG054459 and RF1AG062480 to A.-L.L., R03AG063250, R03AG054936, and R01 LM012535 to K.N., ADNI Psychometrics R01AG029672 to P.K.C., training grant T32DK007778 to L.M.Y., and NSF CAREER award (IIS #1553116) to N.J. This study is also a part of the collaboration from the Friday Harbor Psychometrics Conference sponsored by R13AG030995 (PI: Mungas).
Related Content
The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) repository, http://adni.loni.usc.edu/.
The code used in analysis for the current study are available in a GitHub control repository, https://github.com/linbrainlab/machinelearning.git.
Repository Citation
Hammond, Tyler C.; Xing, Xin; Wang, Chris; Ma, David; Nho, Kwangsik; Crane, Paul K.; Elahi, Fanny; Ziegler, David A.; Liang, Gongbo; Cheng, Qiang; Yanckello, Lucille M.; Jacobs, Nathan; and Lin, Ai-Ling, "β-Amyloid and Tau Drive Early Alzheimer's Disease Decline While Glucose Hypometabolism Drives Late Decline" (2020). Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications. 138.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/sbcoa_facpub/138
Supplementary Information
42003_2020_1079_MOESM2_ESM.pdf (80 kB)
Reporting Summary
42003_2020_1079_MOESM3_ESM.pdf (425 kB)
Peer Review File
Included in
Bioinformatics Commons, Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons, Computer Sciences Commons, Medical Pharmacology Commons, Neurosciences Commons
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Communications Biology, v. 3, issue 1, article no. 352.
© The Author(s) 2020
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