Blood, Cerebrospinal Fluid, and Vascular Biomarkers for Dementia

Early diagnosis of dementia is challenging because dementia pathology progresses slowly and without a clear boundary from normal aging. However, early diagnosis of dementia is important for starting early treatment and slowing down disease progression. Dementia pathology is characterized by abnormal deposition of proteins in the brain. Taking Alzheimer's disease as an example, the deposition of amyloid-beta (Aβ) in the brain is an early change. The biological state of Alzheimer’s disease dementia is characterized by the Amyloid/Tau/Neurodegeneration (ATN) biomarker framework with recent studies also putting forth the importance of Vascular (V) and Cognitive (C) biomarkers to this framework. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and positron emission tomography (PET) biomarkers are widely used; however, both are limited in clinical use. The former is invasive, the latter is expensive and limited by the scarce availability of PET imaging facilities. Blood-based biomarkers of amyloid beta and tau are being developed as potential candidates. While they have achieved some success, challenges such as low concentration, sample instability due to protein properties, detection sensitivity, and cost issues remain. Therefore, there is a need to identify reliable and scalable biomarkers that are relevant to early detection and as well as robust diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Moreover, the differential diagnosis among different forms of dementia (such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia, Parkinson's disease dementia, Frontotemporal dementia) may be a challenge, due to the variability of the clinical phenotype, overlapping pathological processes, and limited sustainability of biomarker detection methods.

Our Research Topic aims to showcase the most innovative advances in the research of biomarkers detected from blood, CSF, PET, vascular, and brain imaging that could be used in clinical settings for early detection of brain changes and the diagnosis of different types of dementia. Our goal is to highlight the latest biomarker findings coming from animal models and human preclinical and clinical research which will ultimately provide new insights to find reliable, affordable, safe, and accurate diagnostic or prognostic value for dementia.

We welcome the submission of any type of manuscript supported by the journal (including Original Research, Review, Brief Research Report, Perspectives, etc.) pertaining to biomarkers for the different types of dementia, addressing but not limited to the following themes:
- Discovery of new biomarkers based on cohort studies targeting the elderly
- Blood biomarkers based on epigenetics, such as DNA methylation and miRNA
- Blood biomarkers based on omics data
- Biomarkers based on brain imaging related to vascular and perivascular properties
- Retinal biomarkers
- Biomarkers for the differential early diagnosis between dementia types and other neurodegenerative diseases
- Prognostic biomarkers
- Other novel mechanism-based biomarkers for dementia

The biomarker addressed in the study should be derived from blood, CSF, vascular measures, or related parameters. Behavioral patterns, facial expressions, neuropsychological features, and related biomarkers are not in the scope of this Research Topic.

Articles accepted after peer review will be published and appear online as soon as accepted for publication.

The Topic Editors and our Frontiers in Dementia office would like to express profound gratitude to Dr. Carla Abdelnour for her valuable work in launching this Research Topic project.

Dr. Lawrence Honig has received research funding from Abbvie, Acumen, Alector, Biogen, Bristol-Myer Squibb, Cognition, EIP, Eisai, Genentech/Roche, Janssen/Johnson and Johnson, Transposon Therapeutics, UCB, and Vaccinex. He has been a consultant at Biogen, Corium, Eisai, Eli Lilly, Genentech/Roche, and New Amsterdam. The other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.