Cited by 74Dementia and Cognitive Impairment ResearchAlzheimer's disease research and treatmentsFunctional Brain Connectivity Studies

Neocortical origin and progression of gray matter atrophy in nonamnestic Alzheimer's disease

Open access
Phillips, Jeffrey S., Da Re, Fulvio, Dratch, Laynie, Xie, Sharon X., Irwin, David J., McMillan, Corey T., Vaishnavi, Sanjeev N., Ferrarese, Carlo +5 more·2018·Neurobiology of Aging

Abstract

Amnestic Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by early atrophy of the hippocampus and medial temporal lobes before spreading to the neocortex. In contrast, nonamnestic Alzheimer's patients have relative sparing of the hippocampus, but the pattern in which the disease spreads is unclear. We examined spreading disease in nonamnestic AD using a novel magnetic resonance imaging-based analysis adapted from pathologic staging studies, applied here to cross-sectional imaging data. We selected 240 T1-weighted scans from 129 patients with pathology confirmed by autopsy or cerebrospinal fluid, and atrophy maps were computed relative to 238 scans from 115 elderly controls. For each phenotype, the frequency of atrophy in 116 brain regions was used to infer the anatomical origin of disease and its progression across 4 phases of atrophy. Results from the amnestic cohort were used to determine appropriate parameter settings for the phase assignment algorithm, based on correspondence to Braak pathology staging. Phase 1 regions, which represent the origin of disease, included the hippocampus for the amnestic group (comprising 33 scans); left lateral temporal lobe for logopenic-variant primary progressive aphasia (88 scans); occipitoparietal cortex for posterior cortical atrophy (51 scans); temporoparietal cortex for corticobasal syndrome (31 scans); and frontotemporal cortex for behavioral/dysexecutive variant AD (37 scans). In nonamnestic patients, atrophy spread to other neocortical areas in later phases, but the hippocampus exhibited only late-phase atrophy in posterior cortical atrophy and corticobasal syndrome. Region-specific phase values were also associated with regional measures of tau, beta amyloid, neuronal loss, and gliosis for the subset of patients (n = 17) with neuropathology findings; this comparison represented a first validation of the phase assignment algorithm. We subsequently assigned a phase to each patient scan based on the similarity of regional atrophy patterns with atrophy predicted for the corresponding phenotype at each phase. Scan-specific phases were correlated with disease duration as well as global and domain-specific cognition, supporting these phase values as global estimates of patients' disease progression. Logistic regression models based on spatial overlap with model-predicted atrophy patterns reliably discriminated nonamnestic phenotypes from each other and from amnestic AD. The frequency-based phase assignment algorithm used in the present study thus represents a promising approach for studying the neocortical origin and spread of disease in nonamnestic AD.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2017.11.008

Cites

72 of 72 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Patients with LOAD often branch into distinct groups including slow versus rapid cognitive decliners, amnestic versus nonamnestic AD, executive versus cortical visual defect versus dysphasia-predominant AD, psychosis and depression-associated AD, and metabolic dysfunction-associated AD.

    “For instance, patients with LOAD often branch into distinct groups including (i) slow versus rapid cognitive decliners (7), (ii) amnestic versus nonamnestic AD (8), (iii) executive versus cortical visual defect versus dysphasia-predominant AD (9), (iv) psychosis and depression-associated AD (10–12), and (v) metabolic dysfunction–associated AD modulated by abnormalities in insulin resistance, Hormo”

    From Molecular subtyping of Alzheimer’s disease using RNA sequencing data reveals novel mechanisms and targets (2021) · cites this paper as [9]

    The Methods (section 2.1) distinguish amnestic from nonamnestic AD, supporting the portion of the citing sentence attached to this source, citation (8). But the Limitations (section 4.6) say the amnestic reference group had a relatively young age of onset and caution against generalizing to typical late-onset AD (LOAD). The source therefore does not fully support the claim as framed specifically about LOAD. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Spreen O Strauss E 1998 A compendium of neuropsychologial tests Administration, norms, and commentary Oxford University Press Oxford

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Phillips, J. S., Da Re, F., Dratch, L., Xie, S. X., Irwin, D. J., McMillan, C. T., Vaishnavi, S. N., Ferrarese, C., Lee, E. B., Shaw, L. M., Trojanowski, J. Q., Wolk, D. A., & Grossman, M.
Affiliations
  • University of Pennsylvania (US)
  • University of Milano-Bicocca (IT)
Corresponding author
Phillips, Jeffrey S.
Venue
Neurobiology of Aging
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2018-03
Volume
63
Pages
75-87
ISSN
0197-4580 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2769426437
Cited by
74
References
72
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 2 · 2016: 1
FWCI
7.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Neurobiology of Aging (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • BOA (University of Milano-Bicocca) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Alzheimer's Association (AARF-16-443681)
  • National Institutes of Health (AG017586, AG010124, AG043503, NS088341)
  • BrightFocus Foundation (A2016244S))
  • Dana Foundation
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
Keywords
gray matter atrophy, disease progression, hippocampal sparing, posterior cortical atrophy, corticobasal syndrome, logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia, Braak staging, tau protein, amyloid-beta
MeSH terms
Aged, Alzheimer Disease, Atrophy, Female, Hippocampus, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Retrospective Studies, Logistic Models, Disease Progression, Neocortex, Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Gray Matter

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review