Background: Concordance between cortical atrophy and cortical glucose hypometabolism within distributed brain networks was evaluated among cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker-defined amyloid/tau/neurodegeneration (A/T/N) groups.
Method: We computed correlations between cortical thickness and fluorodeoxyglucose metabolism within 12 functional brain networks. Differences among A/T/N groups (biomarker normal [BN], Alzheimer's disease [AD] continuum, suspected non-AD pathologic change [SNAP]) in network concordance and relationships to longitudinal change in cognition were assessed.
Results: Network-wise markers of concordance distinguish SNAP subjects from BN subjects within the posterior multimodal and language networks. AD-continuum subjects showed increased concordance in 9/12 networks assessed compared to BN subjects, as well as widespread atrophy and hypometabolism. Baseline network concordance was associated with longitudinal change in a composite memory variable in both SNAP and AD-continuum subjects.
Conclusions: Our novel study investigates the interrelationships between atrophy and hypometabolism across brain networks in A/T/N groups, helping disentangle the structure-function relationships that contribute to both clinical outcomes and diagnostic uncertainty in AD.
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; atrophy; biomarkers; concordance; concordance of atrophy and hypometabolism; fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography; hypometabolism; magnetic resonance imaging; magnetic resonance imaging and fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography concordance; multimodal neuroimaging; structure–function relationships; suspected non‐Alzheimer's disease pathologic change.
© 2022 The Authors. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring published by Wiley Periodicals, LLC on behalf of Alzheimer's Association.