Abstract
Common neurodegenerative diseases feature progressive accumulation of disease-specific protein aggregates in selectively vulnerable brain regions. Increasing experimental evidence suggests that misfolded disease proteins exhibit prion-like properties, including the ability to seed corruptive templating and self-propagation along axons. Direct evidence for transneuronal spread in patients, however, remains limited. To test predictions made by the transneuronal spread hypothesis in human tissues, we asked whether tau deposition within axons of the corticospinal and corticopontine pathways can be predicted based on clinical syndromes and cortical atrophy patterns seen in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Sixteen patients with Pick’s disease, 21 with corticobasal degeneration, and 3 with FTLD-MAPT were included, spanning a range of clinical syndromes across the frontotemporal dementia (FTD) spectrum. Cortical involvement was measured using a neurodegeneration score, a tau score, and a composite score based on semiquantitative ratings and complemented by an MRI-based cortical atrophy W-map based on antemortem imaging. Midbrain cerebral peduncle and pontine base descending fibers were divided into three subregions, representing prefrontopontine, corticospinal, and parieto-temporo-occipital fiber pathways. Tau area fraction was calculated in each subregion and related to clinical syndrome and cortical measures. Within each clinical syndrome, there were predicted relationships between cortical atrophy patterns and axonal tau deposition in midbrain cerebral peduncle and pontine base. Between syndromes, contrasting and predictable patterns of brainstem axonal tau deposition emerged, with, for example, greater tau in prefrontopontine fibers in behavioral variant FTD and in corticospinal fibers in corticobasal syndrome. Finally, semiquantitative and quantitative cortical degeneration scores predicted brainstem axonal tau deposition based on anatomical principles. Taken together, these findings provide important human evidence in support of axonal tau spreading in patients with specific forms of tau-related neurodegeneration.
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Acknowledgements
We thank our patients and their families for participating in neurodegeneration research. We thank Norbert Lee and Anna Karydas for technical assistance.
Funding
Funding was provided by Financial Supporting Project of Long-term Overseas Dispatch of PNU's Tenure-track Faculty (2015) to Eun-Joo Kim, National Institute on Aging (AG023501, AG019724), Tau Consortium, and Bluefield Project to Cure FTD to William W. Seeley and Bruce L. Miller.
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Kim, EJ., Hwang, JH.L., Gaus, S.E. et al. Evidence of corticofugal tau spreading in patients with frontotemporal dementia. Acta Neuropathol 139, 27–43 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00401-019-02075-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00401-019-02075-z