Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy in APP23 Mice Modelling Alzheimers Disease Studied Non-Invasively by MRI: Application to Passive Amyloid-Beta Immunotherapy

Nicolau Beckmann¹, Christelle Gerard¹, Dorothee Abramowski², Catherine Cannet¹, Matthias Staufenbiel²

With about 20 antibodies and vaccines currently in clinical trials amyloid- (A) immunotherapy is the most heavily studied novel treatment approach for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although generally well tolerated A immunotherapy has been associated with microvascular lesions as indicated clinically by vasogenic edema and histologically by microhemorrhages. In our study we have (i) developed an MRI method based on the administration of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles to non-invasively study the development of cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) in amyloid precursor protein (APP) transgenic mouse models and (ii) applied the method to a passive A immunotherapy study in APP23 mice.