# Joint Longitudinal Tau PET Image Reconstruction for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimers Disease

> **NIH NIH R21** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2020 · $252,000

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
 Alzheimer Disease (AD) is an irreversible chronic neurodegenerative disease, the most common cause of
dementia among the elderly. AD is one of the biggest health problems facing our society. The cost of caring for
AD patients is more than $200 billion per year in the US and is expected to increase as the population ages.
Effective treatments for AD have been slow to develop due to the inability to accurately and frequently monitor
AD progression in its very early stages.
 A strong link has been established between the appearance of excessive amounts of paired helical filament
(PHF) Tau protein and the neurodegenerative process that marks dementia caused by AD. The advent of [18F]
AV-1451, a tracer used in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) that selectively binds to PHF-Tau, has enabled
in vivo observation.
 The conventional approach used to determine the rate of Tau-protein deposition in prodromal AD is to scan
a subject two times (between 2-3 years apart), reconstruct images of each scan separately, and derive an
annualized rate of Tau deposition for each patient on a region-by-region basis from the difference of consecutive
images. Region-wise Tau accumulation is then statistically analyzed to find significant differences. The
conventional approach has low sensitivity to changes in Tau deposition due to increased intensity variation in
the difference image, thereby rendering the conventional approach inadequate for analysis of Tau in very early
AD.
 We propose a joint longitudinal image reconstruction approach where the Tau deposition difference image
is reconstructed directly from measurements, drastically lowering the intensity variation in the difference image.
The proposed approach increases sensitivity to slight changed in Tau thereby reducing the sample size required
to conduct a comparative population study, allowing more frequent scans (e.g. spaced at 6 months instead of
2+ years), more frequent diagnosis, and faster drug development.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9870859
- **Project number:** 5R21AG061310-02
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Jinsong Ouyang
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $252,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-02-15 → 2022-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9870859

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9870859, Joint Longitudinal Tau PET Image Reconstruction for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimers Disease (5R21AG061310-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9870859. Licensed CC0.

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