Title: A brain signature highly predictive of future progression to Alzheimer's dementia,
Abstract: Early prognosis of Alzheimer's dementia is hard. Mild cognitive impairment
(MCI) typically precedes Alzheimer's dementia, yet only a fraction of MCI
individuals will progress to dementia, even when screened using biomarkers. We
propose here to identify a subset of individuals who share a common brain
signature highly predictive of oncoming dementia. This signature was composed
of brain atrophy and functional dysconnectivity and discovered using a machine
learning model in patients suffering from dementia. The model recognized the
same brain signature in MCI individuals, 90% of which progressed to dementia
within three years. This result is a marked improvement on the state-of-the-art
in prognostic precision, while the brain signature still identified 47% of all
MCI progressors. We thus discovered a sizable MCI subpopulation which
represents an excellent recruitment target for clinical trials at the prodromal
stage of Alzheimer's disease.