AI-driven fusion of neurological work-up for assessment of biological Alzheimer’s disease
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Alzheimer’s disease (AD) diagnosis hinges on detecting amyloid beta (A β ) plaques and neurofibrillary tau ( τ ) tangles. While amyloid PET imaging is now clinically approved, tau PET remains largely restricted to research settings. These imaging techniques, though valuable, are expensive and often difficult to access, limiting their widespread use in routine clinical practice. Here, we introduce a computational framework that leverages multimodal data from seven distinct cohorts comprising 12, 185 participants to estimate indi-vidual PET profiles, both global and regional, using more accessible data modalities, such as demographics, medical history, medication use, fluid measurements, functional and neuropsychological assessments, and structural MRIs. Our approach achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.79 and 0.84 in classifying persons with positive A β and τ status, respectively. Model predictions were consis-tent with various biomarker and cognitive profiles, as well as with different degrees of protein abnormalities observed in post-mortem examinations. Furthermore, the regional volumes identified by the model as im-portant aligned with the spatial distributions of the standardized uptake value ratio for regional τ labels. Our model offers a practical approach to identify potential candidates for newly approved anti-amyloid treatments and AD clinical trials for combined amyloid and tau therapies by utilizing standard neurological evaluation data.
