Unsuspected Involvement of Spinal Cord in Alzheimer Disease
Roberta Lorenzi, Fulvia Palesi, Gloria Castellazzi, Paolo Vitali, Nicoletta Anzalone, Sara Bernini, Matteo Cotta Ramusino, Elena Sinforiani, Giuseppe Micieli, Alfredo Costa, Egidio D’Angelo, Claudia A. M. Gandini Wheeler‐Kingshott
Abstract
: Our findings reveal that C2-C3 spinal cord atrophy contributes to discriminate AD from HC, together with more established features. The results show that CSA23, calculated from the same 3DT1 scan as all other brain volumes (including right and left hippocampi), has a considerable weight in classification tasks warranting further investigations. Together with recent studies revealing that AD atrophy is spread beyond the temporal lobes, our result adds the spinal cord to a number of unsuspected regions involved in the disease. Interestingly, spinal cord atrophy explains also cognitive scores, which could significantly impact how we model sensorimotor control in degenerative diseases with a primary cognitive domain involvement. Prospective studies should be purposely designed to understand the mechanisms of atrophy and the role of the spinal cord in AD.