Fig. 5: Longitudinal AD analysis.

Thickness asymmetry change in AD versus healthy aging in the AIBL clinical dementia sample. a x-axis denotes study timepoints. Single-timepoint diagnoses (y-axis; NC normal controls, MCI mild cognitive impairment, AD Alzheimer’s disease) were used to define two longitudinal Groups of AD and NC individuals. Each line represents a subject and the color denotes longitudinal group membership (AD-long, in green; NC-long, in gold). AD-long individuals were diagnosed with AD by their final timepoint, whereas NC-long individuals were classified as healthy at every timepoint. Note that single-timepoint MCI diagnoses were considered only for the purpose of defining the longitudinal AD group (see “Methods”). b LME interaction between Group × Time (years) since baseline measurement upon asymmetry in clustering-derived ROI’s (AD-long, N = 41, obs = 110; NC-long, N = 128, obs = 435; two-sided test). Colored lines depict mean thickness asymmetry (LH–RH) per group and ribbons depict 95% confidence intervals. Accelerated change in asymmetry was observed in the AD group in frontal and anterior temporal cortical ROI’s. Results were corrected for multiple comparisons using FDR. Significant FDR-corrected p values are shown on plots (*p(FDR) < 0.05; ** <0.01; see Supplementary Table 6). LH left hemisphere, RH right hemisphere.