Tau spreads more rapidly in early-onset Alzheimer's disease

Patients with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, whose symptoms start before age 65, have more extensive deposits of tau, a hallmark protein of the condition, compared with patients whose symptoms start at 65-plus, a new study found. What's more, tau accumulates at more than twice the rate in younger compared to older patients and spreads widely throughout the brain.

The researchers studied 390 patients from the Longitudinal Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease Study, whose average age was 59, and 211 late-onset patients from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, whose average age was 78.

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Source:

University of California - San Francisco

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