Tau’s Hidden Map: Why Alzheimer’s Pathology Prefers the Brain’s Folds
A neuroimaging study reveals that tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease does not affect the brain uniformly. Instead, it shows a distinct preference for sulci—the deep folds of the cerebral cortex—with the most pronounced cortical thinning and tau accumulation occurring specifically at the depths of these sulci. The research, which combined PET imaging, postmortem histology, and functional connectivity analysis, further suggests that these vulnerable sulcal regions have stronger neural connections to the hippocampus across adulthood, potentially explaining their selective susceptibility to tau deposition later in life.
Why it might matter to you:
This work provides a crucial anatomical framework for interpreting biomarker data, demonstrating that pathology is not randomly distributed but follows specific structural and functional gradients. For biomarker development, it implies that assays correlating with disease progression may need to account for this regional vulnerability. Understanding these patterns could improve the predictive power of multimodal models that integrate fluid biomarkers with structural imaging.
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