Cerebrospinal Fluid and MRI Biomarkers in Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Retrospective Memory Clinic-Based Study

Background: Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases are relatively sensitive and specific in highly curated research cohorts, but proper validation for clinical use is mostly missing. Objective: We studied these biomarkers in a novel memory clinic cohort with a variety of different neurodegenerative diseases. Methods: This study consisted of 191 patients with subjective or objective cognitive impairment who underwent neurological, CSF biomarker (Aβ42, p-tau, and tau) and T1-weighted MRI examinations at Kuopio University Hospital. We assessed CSF and imaging biomarkers, including structural MRI focused on volumetric and cortical thickness analyses, across groups stratified based on different clinical diagnoses, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, Parkinson’s disease, vascular dementia, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and subjects with no evidence of neurodegenerative disease underlying the cognitive symptoms. Imaging biomarkers were also studied by profiling subjects according to the novel amyloid, tau, and, neurodegeneration (AT(N)) classification. Results: Numerous imaging variables differed by clinical diagnosis, including hippocampal, amygdalar and inferior lateral ventricular volumes and entorhinal, lingual, inferior parietal and isthmus cingulate cortical thicknesses, at a false discovery rate (FDR)-corrected threshold for significance (analysis of covariance; p