Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Publication Date
1-1-2022
Journal
Alzheimer's & Dementia
Abstract
Introduction: To evaluate the clinical validity of free water (FW), a diffusion tensor imaging-based biomarker kit proposed by the MarkVCID consortium, by investigating the association between mean FW (mFW) and executive function.
Methods: Baseline mFW was related to a baseline composite measure of executive function (EFC), adjusting for relevant covariates, in three MarkVCID sub-cohorts, and replicated in five, large, independent legacy cohorts. In addition, we tested whether baseline mFW predicted accelerated EFC score decline (mean follow-up time: 1.29 years).
Results: Higher mFW was found to be associated with lower EFC scores in MarkVCID legacy and sub-cohorts (p-values < 0.05). In addition, higher baseline mFW was associated significantly with accelerated decline in EFC scores (p = 0.0026).
Discussion: mFW is a sensitive biomarker of cognitive decline, providing a strong clinical rational for its use as a marker of white matter (WM) injury in multi-site observational studies and clinical trials of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID).
Keywords
biomarker, diffusion tensor imaging, free water, small vessel disease, vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia, VCID, white matter injury
DOI
10.1002/dad2.12362
PMID
36523847
PMCID
PMC9745638
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
12-13-2022
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Published Open-Access
yes