TY - JOUR T1 - Cortical Laminar Binding of PET Amyloid and Tau Tracers in Alzheimer Disease JF - Journal of Nuclear Medicine JO - J Nucl Med SP - 270 LP - 273 DO - 10.2967/jnumed.114.149229 VL - 56 IS - 2 AU - Yi Li AU - Wai Tsui AU - Henry Rusinek AU - Tracy Butler AU - Lisa Mosconi AU - Elizabeth Pirraglia AU - David Mozley AU - Shankar Vallabhajosula AU - Ryuichi Harada AU - Shozo Furumoto AU - Katsutoshi Furukawa AU - Hiroyuki Arai AU - Yukitsuka Kudo AU - Nobuyuki Okamura AU - Mony J. de Leon Y1 - 2015/02/01 UR - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/56/2/270.abstract N2 - Neurofibrillary tau pathology and amyloid β (Aβ) plaques, characteristic lesions of Alzheimer disease (AD), show different neocortical laminar distributions. Neurofibrillary-tangle tau pathology tends to be closer to the gray matter–white matter boundary, whereas Aβ is dispersed throughout the width of the cortical ribbon. Methods: Using PET radiotracers for tau and Aβ lesions, we developed an image analysis tool to measure the distance of tracer-positive voxels from the gray matter–white matter boundary. We studied 5 AD and 5 healthy subjects with both 18F-THK5117 (tau) and 11C-Pittsburgh compound B (Aβ) PET. Results: On average, tau-positive voxels were closer to the white matter than were Aβ-positive voxels. This effect was found for all AD subjects and for all regions, both before and after regionally adjusting for the nonspecific white matter binding of both tracers. The differential laminar pattern was validated through postmortem examination. Conclusion: Within cortical lamina, distance measures may be of value in testing PET tracers for their anatomic selectivity. ER -