Global brain activity links subcortical degeneration to cortical tau progressively across Braak regions over early Alzheimer's disease stages.
- 1Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
- 2Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. [email protected].
- 3Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. [email protected].
Abstract
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by early tau pathology in subcortical neuromodulatory nuclei, followed by progressive cortical tau accumulation; however, the mechanisms linking subcortical dysfunction to cortical tau pathology remain unclear. Using multimodal neuroimaging data from the ADNI cohort, we examined how infra-slow ( < 0.1 Hz) global brain (i.e., gBOLD) activity is related to the volume of the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NbM) and cortical tau accumulation in the early stages of AD. NbM degeneration was associated with reduced gBOLD activity and spatially co-localized tau accumulation, appearing in early Braak regions during the preclinical stage, i.e., cognitively unimpaired participants with abnormal CSF markers, and extending to more advanced Braak areas during the prodromal stage, i.e., mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subjects. Our findings suggest that infra-slow gBOLD activity serves as a functional neural mediator linking subcortical degeneration to cortical tau pathology, highlighting a potential functional pathway linking subcortical and cortical pathology in early AD.
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BibTeX
@article{mao2026global,
title = {{Global brain activity links subcortical degeneration to cortical tau progressively across Braak regions over early Alzheimer's disease stages.}},
author = {Yutong Mao and Baizhou Pan and Xiao Liu},
journal = {Nature communications},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-77748-x},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42869903},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Global brain activity links subcortical degeneration to cortical tau progressively across Braak regions over early Alzheimer's disease stages.
AU - Yutong Mao
AU - Baizhou Pan
AU - Xiao Liu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/12
JO - Nature communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-77748-x
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42869903
AB - Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by early tau pathology in subcortical neuromodulatory nuclei, followed by progressive cortical tau accumulation; however, the mechanisms linking subcortical dysfunction to cortical tau pathology remain unclear. Using multimodal neuroimaging data from the ADNI cohort, we examined how infra-slow ( < 0.1 Hz) global brain (i.e., gBOLD) activity is related to the volume of the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NbM) and cortical tau accumulation in the early stages of AD. NbM degeneration was associated with reduced gBOLD activity and spatially co-localized tau accumulation, appearing in early Braak regions during the preclinical stage, i.e., cognitively unimpaired participants with abnormal CSF markers, and extending to more advanced Braak areas during the prodromal stage, i.e., mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subjects. Our findings suggest that infra-slow gBOLD activity serves as a functional neural mediator linking subcortical degeneration to cortical tau pathology, highlighting a potential functional pathway linking subcortical and cortical pathology in early AD.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -