On 4 February, an international group of researchers published an article on the differences in global amyloid and regional tau disposition between men and women in the journal JAMA Neurology. Although there is a wide consensus that both amyloid and tau disposition are tied to neurodegeneration, the influence of sex differences in early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) progression are yet to be made clear. Therefore, the team aimed to find out to what scale sex differences exist in tau disposition of clinically healthy older adults by the use of a brain imaging technique (positron-emission tomography).
The researchers analysed scans of 296, drawn from 2 independent cross-sectional cohorts. The scientists reported that interestingly their results showed that especially women with higher amyloid burden had greater entorhinal cortical tau signal as compared to male participants with higher amyloid burden. Although the team reported that due to issues with follow up and limited power in the analyses, they concluded that their findings potentially support the growing evidence base of biological differences in risk of AD and warrant further research in this area.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstract/2722842
