Background: Epidemiological studies suggest a relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dementia.
Objective: This study assessed whether Alzheimer's disease (AD) imaging biomarkers were elevated in Vietnam veterans with PTSD.
Methods: The study compared cognition, amyloid-β, tau, regional brain metabolism and volumes, and the effect of APOE in 83 veterans with and without PTSD defined by the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale.
Results: The PTSD group had significantly lower education, predicted premorbid IQ, total intracranial volume, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment score compared with the controls. There was no difference between the two groups in the imaging or genetic biomarkers for AD.
Conclusion: Our findings do not support an association between AD pathology and PTSD of up to 50 years duration. Measures to assess cognitive reserve, a factor that may delay the onset of dementia, were lower in the PTSD group compared with the controls and this may account for the previously observed higher incidence of dementia with PTSD.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; amyloid; biomarkers; dementia; positron emission tomography; posttraumatic stress disorder; tau.