Journal of Alzheimer's Disease - Volume 89, issue 1

Authors: Saito, Satoshi | Yamashiro, Takayuki | Yamauchi, Miho | Yamamoto, Yumi | Noguchi, Michio | Tomita, Tsutomu | Kawakami, Daisuke | Shikata, Masamitsu | Tanaka, Tomotaka | Ihara, Masafumi

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Background: Cerebral amyloid angiopathy is a cerebrovascular disease directly implicated in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis through amyloid-β deposition. Growing evidence has shown a pivotal role of chronic neuroinflammation both in cerebral amyloid angiopathy and Alzheimer’s disease. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether circulating levels of the complement 3, a crucial component of the innate immune system, are increased in patients with cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Methods: Serum complement 3 levels were retrospectively measured by a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in a single-center cohort of patients with mild cognitive impairment. The diagnosis of cerebral amyloid …angiopathy was based on the modified Boston criteria. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the predictive factors for cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Results: We analyzed 55 mild cognitive impairment patients (mean age [standard deviation]: 76.3 [6.8] years; 33 [60% ] men). Complement 3 levels were significantly increased in cerebral amyloid angiopathy patients (n  = 16) compared with those without cerebral amyloid angiopathy (n  = 39) (median [interquartile range]: 0.43 [0.34–0.65] versus 0.35 [0.25–0.45], respectively; p  = 0.040). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that increased complement 3 levels were significantly associated with cerebral amyloid angiopathy. After selection of the best predictive model using stepwise selection, complement 3 was preserved as a significant independent predictive factor for cerebral amyloid angiopathy (odds ratio per 0.1 unit/mL increase [95% confidence interval]: 1.407 [1.042–1.899]; p  = 0.026). Conclusion: Complement activation may play a pivotal role in cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Complement 3 may be a novel diagnostic biomarker for cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Show more

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, biomarkers, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, complement 3, inflammation

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-220494

Citation: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 89, no. 1, pp. 381-387, 2022

Authors: Ceresetti, Romain | Rouch, Isabelle | Laurent, Bernard | Getenet, Jean-Claude | Pommier, Morgane | de Chalvron, Stéphanie | Chainay, Hanna | Borg, Céline

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative pathology that disrupts processing of facial expressions of emotion. The impairment was demonstrated for negative emotions in tasks of matching, discriminating, and labeling facial expressions but no study has included the expression of pain in its protocol. Objective: The objective was to study the processing of emotional facial expressions in AD with a particular interest in pain expression. Methods: Twenty-seven controls, 15 mild AD patients, and 15 moderate AD patients had to perform four emotional tasks: identification of facial expressions, matching pain expressions, discriminating the intensity of pain expressions, …and judging pain intensity. Results: Some emotions were less efficiently recognized by AD patients compared to controls (p  < 0.001), specifically fear from the mild stage (p  < 0.05), pain and disgust from the moderate stage (p  < 0.05 and p  < 0.001 respectively). The Exploratory Factor Analysis showed that recognition of pain and recognition of other discreet emotions were underpinned by two different latent factors. Performances on pain expression matching task and pain intensity discrimination task did not differ by group. (p  = 0.334 and p  = 0.787 respectively). Finally, moderate AD patients judged the pain less intensively than the Control group for both, moderate, and severe pain intensity (p  < 0.001). Conclusion: Our data suggest that AD disrupts the recognition of pain expression along with recognition of fear and disgust. Additionally, AD patients seem to underestimate pain intensity compared to controls. The self-rated pain scales should be adapted to the pain processing deficit of AD patients. Show more

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, facial expression, identification of pain, pain intensity, painful faces

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-220236

Citation: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 89, no. 1, pp. 389-398, 2022