White matter hyperintensities are associated with amyloid burden in APOE4 non-carriers.
Previous preclinical studies have suggested a close relationship between cerebrovascular disease (CVD) and Alzheimer's disease. However, a direct correlation between CVD and amyloid burden has not yet been shown in humans. If there is a relationship between CVD and amyloid burden, it is possible that the apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) genotype may have an effect on this relationship because APOE4 is a risk factor for the development of AD. We therefore evaluated the effects of APOE4 on the relationship between white matter hyperintensities (WMH), a marker of CVD, and amyloid burden, measured by 11C-Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) PET. We recruited 53 patients with subcortical vascular cognitive impairments, who had both WMH on MRI and amyloid deposition assessed by PiB PET. Twenty-two of these patients were APOE4 carriers (41.5%). In the APOE4 non-carriers, a significant positive correlation was shown between the volume of WMH and PiB retention (β = 7.0 × 10-3, p = 0.034) while no significant correlation was found in APOE4 carriers (β = -9.0 × 10-3, p = 0.085). Statistical parametric mapping analyses in APOE4 non-carriers showed that WMH were associated with PiB retention in the bilateral medial occipitotemporal gyrus, cuneus, and superior cerebellum. Our results suggested that WMH are correlated with amyloid burden especially in the posterior brain regions in APOE4 non-carriers. However, this correlation was not observed in APOE4 carriers, perhaps because in these subjects the influence of APOE4 overrides the effect of CVD.
['Noh|Young|Y|', 'Seo|Sang Won|SW|', 'Jeon|Seun|S|', 'Lee|Jong Min|JM|', 'Kim|Jung-Hyun|JH|', 'Kim|Geon Ha|GH|', 'Cho|Hanna|H|', 'Yoon|Cindy W|CW|', 'Kim|Hee Jin|HJ|', 'Ye|Byoung Seok|BS|', 'Kim|Sung Tae|ST|', 'Choe|Yearn Seong|YS|', 'Lee|Kyung-Han|KH|', 'Kim|Jae Seung|JS|', 'Ewers|Michael|M|', 'Weiner|Michael W|MW|', 'Lee|Jae-Hong|JH|', 'Werring|David J|DJ|', 'Kang|Dae Ryong|DR|', 'Kim|Chang Soo|CS|', 'Na|Duk L|DL|']
D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides D000814:Aniline Compounds D053327:Apolipoprotein E4 D001921:Brain D003072:Cognition Disorders D015140:Dementia, Vascular D005260:Female D006801:Humans D056784:Leukoencephalopathies D008297:Male D009483:Neuropsychological Tests D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography D012044:Regression Analysis D012189:Retrospective Studies D013223:Statistics as Topic D013844:Thiazoles
amyloid burden cerebrovascular disease Alzheimer's disease apolipoprotein E4