Interaction of Alzheimer’s Disease Status and History of Traumatic Brain Injury on Measures of Cortical Thickness

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is associated with an accelerated course of dementia, although biological relationships are still incompletely understood. We characterized the differences in cortical thickness, for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) patients with and without a history of TBI. Among individuals diagnosed with AD, a history of TBI was associated with a smaller decrease in cortical thickness in frontal-temporal regions, relative to their non-AD counterparts, with analyses controlling for the effects of age, sex, and education. TBI may lower the susceptibility threshold for cognitive decline related to AD by decreasing an individuals’ ability to cope with aging and/or AD pathology.