Distinctive Temporal Trajectories of Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers According to Sex and APOE Genotype: Importance of Striatal Amyloid

PURPOSE: Previously, sex and apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype had distinct effects on the cognitive trajectory across the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) continuum. We therefore aimed to investigate whether these trajectory curves including β-amyloid (Aβ) accumulation in the cortex and striatum, and tau accumulation would differ according to sex and APOE genotype. METHODS: We obtained 534 subjects for (18)F-florbetapir (AV45) PET analysis and 163 subjects for (18)F-flortaucipir (AV1451) PET analysis from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative database. For cortical Aβ, striatal Aβ, and tau SUVR, we fitted penalized splines to model the slopes of SUVR value as a non-linear function of baseline SUVR value. By integrating the fitted splines, we obtained the predicted SUVR curves as a function of time. RESULTS: The time from initial SUVR to the cutoff values were 14.9 years for cortical Aβ, 18.2 years for striatal Aβ, and 22.7 years for tau. Although there was no difference in cortical Aβ accumulation rate between women and men, striatal Aβ accumulation was found to be faster in women than in men, and this temporal difference according to sex was more pronounced in tau accumulation. However, APOE ε4 carriers showed faster progression than non-carriers regardless of kinds of AD biomarkers’ trajectories. CONCLUSION: Our temporal trajectory models illustrate that there is a distinct progression pattern of AD biomarkers depending on sex and APOE genotype. In this regard, our models will be able to contribute to designing personalized treatment and prevention strategies for AD in clinical practice.