Fluid and Tissue Biomarkers of Lewy Body Dementia: Report of an LBDA Symposium

The Lewy Body Dementia Association (LBDA) held a virtual event, the LBDA Biofluid/Tissue Biomarker Symposium, on January 25, 2021, to present advances in biomarkers for Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), which includes Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's Disease Dementia (PDD). The meeting featured eight internationally known scientists from Europe and the United States and attracted over 200 scientists and physicians from academic centers, the National Institutes of Health and the pharmaceutical industry. Methods for confirming and quantifying the presence of Lewy body and Alzheimer pathology as well as novel biomarkers were discussed.

CONECTOME COMPARISON IN MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT: AD CONTINUUM X SNAP

Background: Studies on functional magnetic resonance imaging of prodromal Alzheimer´s disease can help understanding on how it affects the brain. Objective: We seek for potential differences in brain resting state functional connectivity (FC) of subjects with Mild cognitive impairment with biomarkers: Alzheimer’s disease continuum (MCI-DA) and Suspected non-Alzheimer pathology (MCI-SNAP). Methods: MCI and controls were defined by the Clinical Dementia Rating, neuropsychological measures and cerebrospinal fluid data, resulting in 32 MCI-DA, 25 MCI-SNAP and 35 controls. An analysis ROI-to-ROI was performed inter and intra-networks involving the default mode (DMN), salience (SN), visuospatial (VN) and executive networks. FC was estimated by Pearson’s correlation coefficients converted into Z-Scores. Groups were compared by T tests. Alpha was set to 0.05, FDR correction. Results: Between MCI-DA and controls, intra-network decrease of FC in the SN and inter-network between SN and VN was observed. There was maintenance of the anti-correlation between DMN and VN, which may indicate an indirect dysfunction of the DMN. Between MCI-SNAP and controls, there was an increase in FC between one ROI of DMN and one ROI of VN. Conclusion: MCI-AD showed marked differences in FC compared to MCI-SNAP, mainly in salience network and indirectly in DMN. MCI-SNAP showed milder impairment in resting state networks.