Abstract
Background: Utilities of blood-based biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease (AD) clinical trials remain unknown. Objective: To evaluate the ability of plasma neurofilament light chain (NfL) to predict future declines in cognition and activities of daily living (ADL) outcomes in 26 older adults with mild-to-moderate AD dementia from the FIT-AD Trial. Methods: Plasma NfL was measured at baseline and 3 and 6 months. Cognition and ADL were assessed using the AD Assessment Scale-Cognition (ADAS-Cog) and AD Uniform Dataset Instruments and Disability Assessment for Dementia (DAD), respectively, at baseline, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Linear mixed effects models were used to examine the associations between baseline or change in plasma NfL and changes in outcomes. Results: Higher baseline plasma NfL was associated with greater rate of decline in ADAS-Cog from baseline to 6 months (standardized estimate of 0.00462, p=0.02853) and in ADL from baseline to 12 months (standardized estimate of-0.00284, p=0.03338). Greater increase in plasma NfL in short term from baseline to 3 months was associated with greater rate of decline in memory and ADL from 3 to 6 months (standardized estimate of-0.04638 [0.003], p=0.01635; standardized estimate of-0.03818, p=0.0435) and greater rate of decline in ADL from 3 to 12 month (standardized estimate of-0.01492, p=0.01082). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that plasma NfL might have the potential to predict cognitive and function decline up to 12 months. However, future studies with bigger sample sizes need to confirm the findings.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 601-611 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Reports |
Volume | 5 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 21 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The research study reported in this publication was supported by the Alzheimer?s Association NIRG (#NIRG-15-362393) and by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01AG059654. The FIT-AD Trial was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01AG043392-01A1. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily present the official review of the National Institutes of health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021-The authors. Published by IOS Press.
Keywords
- ADAS-Cog
- Activities of daily living
- Alzheimer's disease
- blood-based biomarkers
- cognition
- longitudinal
- neurofilament light
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article