STRESS: BETTER COPING ASSOCIATED WITH LOWER TAU IN PRECLINICAL ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Research in animals suggests that chronic stress exacerbates tau pathology and promotes the amyloid cascade. In humans, psychological stress has been associated with higher risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) clinical syndrome. The objective of this study was to assess associations between stress coping ability, tau burden (assessed via tau-PET) and evaluate whether these associations differed by sex and amyloid status (A+/A-) in cognitively unimpaired older adults (CU). We included 225 CU participants (mean age 70.4±10.2, 48% were females) enrolled in the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging who completed the Brief Resilience Scale” [BRS] to assess stress coping abilities, and underwent amyloid-PET (PiB-PET) and tau-PET (AV1451-PET) and neuropsychological evaluations. We fitted multiple regression and ANOVA models to assess the associations between stress coping ability (assessed via “Brief Resilience Scale” [BRS]) and tau-PET and the interaction of BRS with amyloid status and sex on tau-PET. We focused on entorhinal cortex (ERC) tau burden, and also performed voxel-wise analyses. Age, sex, education, depression and anxiety were considered as covariates. Higher stress coping ability was associated with lower tau burden in the medial temporal lobe (including ERC), occipito-temporal and cuneal/precuneal cortices (Fig.1A). The association was present in both A+ CU and A- CU but weaker in A- CU older adults. There was an interaction between amyloid status and stress restricted to the medial temporal lobe tau such that A+ CU older adults with lower stress coping abilities showed higher tau (Fig.1B). There were no significant interactions between stress and sex.