Blood-Based Biomarkers and Risk of Onset of Mild Cognitive Impairment Over the Short and Long Term
Anja Soldan, Corinne Pettigrew, Jiangxia Wang, Marilyn Albert, Kaj Blennow, Tobias Bittner, Abhay Moghekar
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: ), neurodegeneration (NfL), and glial activation and neuroinflammation (glial fibrillary acidic protein [GFAP], YKL40, soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 [sTREM2]) collected when participants were cognitively normal are associated with the time to onset of MCI. METHODS: Cognitively unimpaired participants from the longitudinal observational BIOCARD study provided blood plasma at their baseline evaluation ("baseline 1"). A second "baseline" specimen (collected using slightly different procedures) was evaluated for participants who were still cognitively normal approximately 7 years later. The plasma assays were based on the NeuroToolKit (cobas Elecsys assays, Roche Diagnostics). Cox regression models tested the association of biomarker levels with time to MCI symptom onset, separately for both baselines. RESULTS: )), which remained significant. YKL40 and sTREM2 were not associated with MCI onset. DISCUSSION: , neurodegeneration (NfL), and neuroinflammation (GFAP) individually are associated with progression from normal cognition to MCI, but the AD-nonspecific neurodegeneration and inflammation markers were not associated with symptom onset after accounting for amyloid and p-tau levels.