An open dataset of cerebral tau deposition in young healthy adults based on [18F]MK6240 positron emission tomography
8 affiliations
- 1Multimodal Imaging and Connectome Analysis (MICA) Laboratory and Centre of Excellence in Epilepsy at the Neuro (CEEN), Montréal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill University, Montréal, Québec Canada
- 2Montréal Neurological Institute, McGill University Health Centre, Montréal, Québec Canada
- 3McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montréal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill University, Montréal, Québec Canada
- 4Translational Neuroimaging Laboratory, McGill University Research Centre for Studies in Aging, Montréal, Québec Canada
- 5Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute (OBI), University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre (UTSW), Dallas, Texas USA
- 6Douglas Mental Health University Institute, McGill University, Montréal, Québec Canada
- 7Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 8Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Sleep-Wake-Epilepsy Center, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Abstract
Tauopathies are pathologies wherein phosphorylated insoluble tau aggregates in neurons, leading to dysfunction and degeneration. Positron emission tomography (PET) enables measurement of in vivo tau, with second-generation radiotracers such as [18F]MK6240 showing high tau affinity with minimal off-target binding. While tauopathies are commonly linked to age-related neurodegenerative diseases, notably Alzheimer’s disease (AD), evidence suggests pathophysiological cascades may begin long before clinical onset. Increasingly, tau is recognized in pathologies affecting younger individuals, including autosomal dominant AD, Niemann-Pick disease type C, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and epilepsy, thus highlighting the importance of normative data in non-geriatric populations. Here, we present a dataset of 33 young to middle-age healthy adults (mean age 34.0 ± 10.4 years, 12 female) with [18F]MK6240 PET data and T1w magnetic resonance imaging. Longitudinal data are also available in a subset of 9 participants with a minimum follow-up time of 1 year. Our dataset aims to support imaging biomarker studies on younger individuals potentially at risk for AD and to advance work in tauopathies affecting non-geriatric populations generally excluded from neurodegeneration studies.
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BibTeX
@article{lam2026open,
title = {{An open dataset of cerebral tau deposition in young healthy adults based on [18F]MK6240 positron emission tomography}},
author = {Jack Lam and Raúl Rodriguez-Cruces and Thaera Arafat and Jessica Royer and Judy Chen and Arielle Dascal and Ella Sahlas and Raluca Pana and Robert Hopewell and Chris Hung-Hsin Hsiao and Gassan Massarweh and Jean-Paul Soucy and Pedro Rosa-Neto and Sylvia Villeneuve and Lorenzo Caciagli and Matthias Koepp and Andrea Bernasconi and Neda Bernasconi and Boris Bernhardt},
journal = {Scientific Data},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1038/s41597-026-07656-8},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07656-8},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - An open dataset of cerebral tau deposition in young healthy adults based on [18F]MK6240 positron emission tomography
AU - Jack Lam
AU - Raúl Rodriguez-Cruces
AU - Thaera Arafat
AU - Jessica Royer
AU - Judy Chen
AU - Arielle Dascal
AU - Ella Sahlas
AU - Raluca Pana
AU - Robert Hopewell
AU - Chris Hung-Hsin Hsiao
AU - Gassan Massarweh
AU - Jean-Paul Soucy
AU - Pedro Rosa-Neto
AU - Sylvia Villeneuve
AU - Lorenzo Caciagli
AU - Matthias Koepp
AU - Andrea Bernasconi
AU - Neda Bernasconi
AU - Boris Bernhardt
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/04
JO - Scientific Data
DO - 10.1038/s41597-026-07656-8
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07656-8
AB - Tauopathies are pathologies wherein phosphorylated insoluble tau aggregates in neurons, leading to dysfunction and degeneration. Positron emission tomography (PET) enables measurement of in vivo tau, with second-generation radiotracers such as [18F]MK6240 showing high tau affinity with minimal off-target binding. While tauopathies are commonly linked to age-related neurodegenerative diseases, notably Alzheimer’s disease (AD), evidence suggests pathophysiological cascades may begin long before clinical onset. Increasingly, tau is recognized in pathologies affecting younger individuals, including autosomal dominant AD, Niemann-Pick disease type C, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and epilepsy, thus highlighting the importance of normative data in non-geriatric populations. Here, we present a dataset of 33 young to middle-age healthy adults (mean age 34.0 ± 10.4 years, 12 female) with [18F]MK6240 PET data and T1w magnetic resonance imaging. Longitudinal data are also available in a subset of 9 participants with a minimum follow-up time of 1 year. Our dataset aims to support imaging biomarker studies on younger individuals potentially at risk for AD and to advance work in tauopathies affecting non-geriatric populations generally excluded from neurodegeneration studies.
SN - 2052-4463
ER -