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Limited data are available on whether plasma tau levels are associated with incident cognitive decline (NEJM JW Neurol Nov 2017 and JAMA Neurol 2017; 74:1073). To further investigate, researchers analyzed three patient samples from the Framingham Heart Study, looking at the association between plasma tau levels and (1) incident all-cause dementia and incident Alzheimer disease (AD) dementia (n=1453; mean age, 75); (2) cognitive performance and hippocampal volumes (n=3238; mean age, 58); and (3) autopsy findings (n=42; mean age at death, 82).
Of the 1453 patients followed longitudinally, 134 developed incident dementia, including AD dementia in 105. Each standard-deviation (SD) increase in the log of plasma tau levels was associated with a 29…