Stress: better coping associated with lower tau in amyloid positive cognitively unimpaired older adults

Objective: Research in animals has shown that chronic stress exacerbates tau pathology. In humans, psychological stress has been associated with higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) clinical syndrome. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to assess the hypothesis that stress coping ability (assessed via the “Brief Resilience Scale” [BRS]) is associated with tau burden and to evaluate whether these associations differed by sex and amyloid status (A+/A-) in cognitively unimpaired older adults (CU). Methods: We included 225 CU participants (mean age: 70.4±10.2, 48% females) enrolled in the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging who completed the BRS and underwent amyloid-PET (PIB-PET) and tau-PET (AV1451-PET). We fitted multiple regression and ANCOVA models to assess the associations between BRS and tau-PET and the interaction with amyloid status and sex. We focused on entorhinal cortex (ERC) tau burden, and also performed voxel-wise analyses. Age, sex, education, depress...