Longitudinal progression of choroid plexus enlargement is associated with female sex, cognitive decline and ApoE E4 homozygote status

Post Written By: Benedetta Romeo

The choroid plexus (CP) is a vascularized epithelial structure in the brain’s ventricles and is essential for cerebral homeostasis through cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) production, the blood-CSF barrier, and inflammatory regulation.

CP dysfunction and pro-inflammatory signaling are probably linked to aging and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

In this publication, we conducted a retrospective study on volumetric CP changes in a longitudinal cohort of subjects across the cognitive impairment spectrum. The analysis focused mainly on sex differences in CP volume changes over time.

Key observations:

  1. CP volume increased over time across all groups studied. However, CP enlargement occurred more than twice as rapidly in females compared to males
  2. Subjects who were ApoE E4 homozygotes exhibited CP volume increases more than three times that of non-carriers or heterozygotes, indicating a strong genetic influence on CP enlargement in cognitive impairment contexts
  3. Significant CP volume increases were seen primarily in “convertors” (subjects progressing to a more severe cognitive impairment), while stable mild cognitive impairment and cognitively normal groups had smaller increases. Stable Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients showed no significant change

Check the publication here:Frontiers | Longitudinal progression of choroid plexus enlargement is associated with female sex, cognitive decline and ApoE E4 homozygote status

A big thank you to everybody who contributed to this article: Julie Novakova Martinkova, Maria Teresa Ferretti, Alberto Ferrari, Ondrej Lerch, Veronika Matuskova, Juraj Secnik, and Jakub Hort for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative