Apnea‐associated hypoxemia is linked to greater tau deposition in women with Alzheimer’s disease risk
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by recurrent pharyngeal airway collapse and drops in blood oxygen levels that lead to intermittent hypoxemia. OSA has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology, including tau. AD is more prevalent in women, and women tend to have higher levels of tau compared to men. OSA is underdiagnosed, particularly in postmenopausal women where OSA risk is similar to men. We conducted a pilot study examining the relationship between OSA and tau using positron emission tomography (PET) in older women at higher risk for AD who participated in the Women Inflammation and Tau Study (WITS). Method 10 older women (aged 71±3.3 years) were recruited to WITS, which required elevated genetic risk of AD and a Montreal Cognitive Assessment score suggestive of mild cognitive impairment (range 13‐20). A home sleep test was completed to derive the apnea‐hypopnea index (AHI), nadir and mean oxygen saturation (Osat), and proportion of time in bed (TIB) with oxygen saturation ≤88% (Osat≤88%). Participants also underwent MK‐6240 PET to determine tau deposition. Standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) was computed in temporal meta‐region of interest (ROI) Braak Stages I, III‐IV, and V‐VI. Spearman correlation was used to analyze the associations between OSA characteristics and tau PET SUVR in the respective ROIs. Result In this initial sample from WITS, 40% had mild OSA (AHI≥5/h and AHI<15/h) and 40% had moderate OSA (AHI≥15/h and AHI<30/h). Greater proportion of TIB with Osat≤88% was associated with higher tau SUVR in temporal meta‐ROI (rho=0.69, p=0.03), Braak III‐IV (rho=0.70, p=0.03), and Braak V‐VI (rho=0.69, p=0.03). No significant relationships were observed between AHI and tau PET SUVR in the respective ROIs (all p>0.40). Conclusion In this small sample of women with elevated AD risk, OSA was evident in the majority. Additionally, we found positive relationships between proportion of TIB with Osat≤88% and tau deposition in temporal and neocortical regions. These findings suggests that OSA‐related intermittent hypoxemia could potentially contribute to the pathogenesis of tau; however, longitudinal studies are needed. Treatment of OSA may be a possible target to reduce or delay the impact of AD.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".