Journal watch: Staging Alzheimer’s disease using tau PET and the interaction of amyloid and tau

Wang and colleagues of Washington University, MO, USA, reported that tau imaging has the potential to stage preclinical and clinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The research, reported in JAMA Neurology, demonstrated that the binding of tau ligand [18F]-AV-1451 was associated with a battery of AD biomarkers and successfully differentiated AD participants from cognitively normal (CN) participants. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of tau ligands such as [18F]-AV-1451 are imperative to understanding the pathology of AD, as well as accurately staging the disease. To date, almost all clinical trials for AD drugs have failed: a significant contributor to these failures lies in...