Association between antemortem plasma and structural MRI biomarkers and postmortem tau pathology in the Mayo…

Cohort studyAlzheimer's research & therapy· Oct 2025

Association between antemortem plasma and structural MRI biomarkers and postmortem tau pathology in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging.

Mingzhao Hu, Christina M Moloney, Scott A Przybelski … Prashanthi Vemuri

NeuropathologyCohort studyQ1IF 7.8

Hippocampal MRI volume predicted postmortem tau better than plasma biomarkers

Association between antemortem plasma and structural MRI biomarkers and postmortem tau pathology in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging.

Mingzhao Hu … Prashanthi Vemuri

Alzheimer's research & therapy · Oct 2025

Background

Antemortem plasma and structural MRI biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are increasingly utilized for diagnosis and prognosis but their ability to predict regional tau burden remains relatively unexplored.

Purpose

We aimed to evaluate predictive models based on antemortem AD plasma and structural MRI for prediction of regional tau pathology in postmortem brain tissue.

Methods

Autopsy data from 62 participants in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (Mayo Clinic Study of Aging) were analyzed (mean age of 84.6 years; 32% female; 1.4 years of mean time of last plasma draw to death).

n = 62 participants

Results

hippocampal volume explained most of the variation in tau severity

MRI models

0.66adjust

Plasma models

0.36adjust

More results

Predictions for parietal AT8 and 2E9 were lower with an adjusted R 2 of 0.28-0.29 based on MRI biomarkers and 0.24-0.36 based on plasma biomarkers.

The adjusted R 2 values for both regions were higher for AT8 compared to 2E9 prediction for plasma biomarker models.

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Conclusion · 1 of 2

Our study demonstrates the greater sensitivity of regional MRI to tau pathology in comparison to plasma biomarkers.

Conclusion · 2 of 2

Future studies should explore newer MRI methods and additional plasma biomarkers more specific to tau pathology such as microtubule binding region for prediction of antemortem tau pathology.

Association between antemortem plasma and structural MRI biomarkers and postmortem tau pathology in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging.

Association between antemortem plasma and structural MRI biomarkers and postmortem tau pathology in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging.

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