PET tau across stages of Alzheimer’s disease

In vivo quantification of tau can be performed using tau-PET (PET: positron emission tomography). Tau-PET binds to insoluble neurofibrillary tangles, another core pathological feature of AD. Six stages that characterize tau pathology have been established through post-mortem studies^1,2 and PET brain imaging.³ This illustration represents the stages of tau pathology measured by PET. Early stages are often accompanied by mild memory dysfunction; middle stages are accompanied by mild cognitive impairment; later stages are observed in individuals with AD dementia.

The figure is reprinted from Therriault J, et al. Nat Aging 2022;2(6):565–535. The content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/