Many older people at the end of life may have a pattern of protein deposits in the brain associated with memory loss called limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy neuropathologic change, or LATE-NC, a recent study published in Acta Neuropathologica suggests.
Combining autopsy data from 13 international cohorts, a team of researchers found that LATE-NC was present in almost 40% of more than 6000 individuals with advanced age who volunteered to donate their brains after death. The neuropathology was often—but not always—observed in combination with Alzheimer disease brain changes, a finding the researchers say supports LATE as its own type of amnestic dementia.