Affiliations: [a]
Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic-Rochester, Rochester, MN, USA
| [b]
Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic-Rochester, Rochester, MN, USA
| [c]
Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic-Rochester, Rochester, MN, USA
| [d]
Department of Information Technology, Mayo Clinic-Rochester, Rochester, MN, USA
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Prashanthi Vemuri, PhD, Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, 200 First St SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. E-mail: Vemuri.Prashanthi@mayo.edu.
Abstract: Background:Statins have been proposed to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Objective:Assess whether long-term statin use was associated with neuroimaging biomarkers of aging and dementia. Methods:Methods: We analyzed neuroimaging biomarkers in 1,160 individuals aged 65+ from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, a population-based prospective longitudinal study of cognitive aging. Results:Statin-treated (5+ years of therapy) individuals had greater burden of mid-and late-life cardiovascular disease (p < 0.001) than statin-untreated (≤3 months) individuals. Lower fractional anisotropy in the genu of the corpus callosum, an early marker of cerebrovascular disease, was associated with long-term statin exposure (p < 0.035). No significant associations were identified between long-term statin exposure and cerebral amyloid or tau burden, AD pattern neurodegeneration, or white matter hyperintensity burden. Conclusions:Long-term statin therapy was not associated with differences in AD biomarkers. Individuals with long-term statin exposure had worse white matter integrity in the genu of the corpus callosum, consistent with the coexistence of higher cerebrovascular risk factor burden in this group.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, amyloid, neurodegeneration, cerebrovascular disease, biomarkers, magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, statins, tau, white matter
