Skip to main content

Table 3 Sample characteristics

From: Structural MRI profiles and tau correlates of atrophy in autopsy-confirmed CTE

  Brain donors with CTE Normal Cognition P-valuee
N 55 31 --
Age at MRI scan, mean (SD) years 71.04 (7.32) 76.16 (8.55) <0.01
Time from MRI scan to death, mean (SD) years 3.96 (3.07) -- --
Sex, n (%) female 0 0 --
Race, n (%) White 53 (96.4) 28 (90.3) 0.35
Education, mean (SD) yearsa 16.87 (2.33) 16.17 (2.23) 0.18
Antemortem dementia, n (%) yesb 50 (92.6%) 0 --
Functional Activities Questionnaire, mean (SD)c 22.20 (9.02) 1.37 (3.44) <0.01
Cause of death, n (%) d    
 Neurodegenerative disease 36 (65.5) 0 --
 Cardiovascular disease 4 (7.3) 3 (27.3) --
 Suicide 2 (3.6) 0 --
 Cancer 5 (9.1) 4 (36.4) --
 Motor neuron disease 3 (5.5) 1 (9.1) --
 Injury 1 (1.8) 0 --
 Other/Unknown 4 (7.3) 3 (27.3) --
  1. aEducation is missing for one participant with normal cognition
  2. bAntemortem dementia status for the brain donors with CTE was determined by a consensus panel of clinicians based on informant-reported cognitive, behavioral, mood, and functional symptoms at time of death. Antemortem dementia was not determined for one brain donor with CTE because of missing clinical data. The four brain donors with CTE who were not determined to have had antemortem dementia did have informant-reported cognitive symptoms. The normal cognition group had normal cognition at the time of the MRI
  3. cThe Functional Activities Questionnaire (FAQ) assesses activities of daily living and ranges from 0 to 30 with higher scores reflecting greater functional difficulties. For brain donors with CTE, the informant of the brain donor completed the FAQ asking about difficulties at time of death. There were 6 brain donors with CTE and 12 participants with normal cognition who had missing scores for the FAQ
  4. dOf the participants with normal cognition, 11 were known to be deceased and causes of death listed in the table are based on these 11 individuals. Six donated their brains for autopsy examination and two of the three other/unknown causes of death were not brain donors. Of the six brain donors, two had no neurodegenerative disease changes, one had low Alzheimer’s disease and vascular neuropathological changes, one had intermediate Alzheimer’s disease neuropathological changes, one had primary age-related tauopathy, and the other had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The autopsy diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was based on loss of lower motor neurons in the brain stem in the context of a normal brain weight and absence of cortical atrophy. Based on our medical record review, the MRI used in this study for that individual was done prior to a clinical amyotrophic lateral sclerosis diagnosis, though the participant may have been manifesting early motor symptoms
  5. eIndependent samples t-test compared brain donors with CTE to participants with normal cognition on age at MRI, years of education and FAQ scores; Fisher’s exact test was used to test for differences on race
Back to article page

Alzheimer's Research & Therapy

ISSN: 1758-9193