Developing novel MRI biomarkers of amyloid beta aggregation and inflammation in APPswe/PS1dEd mouse model of Alzheimer’s Disease

We present a framework to extract novel MRI biomarkers, based on diffusion-weighted contrast, capable of capturing microstructural alterations in the APPswe/PS1dE9 mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. To validate the MRI framework, imaging was complemented with histology, with the aim of elucidating the cell-scale biological basis. We demonstrate that MRI signal carries the fingerprint of Alzheimer’s disease characteristic plaque aggregation and associated neuroinflammation patterns in a cohort of 18 months old APPswe/PS1dE9 mice as compared to healthy age-matched controls. This framework sets the basis for an in-vivo multimodal imaging protocol, translatable to humans, for early detection of Alzheimer-specific microstructural alterations.