Age-related tau changes common in oldest-old brains
Brain examinations found age-related tau changes in support cells in 79.6% of 304 people from the population-based Vantaa 85+ study.
Cohort study
Limit: Prevalence estimates exclude people without neuropathological examinations, who could differ from those examined
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
In an observational study, researchers examined brain tissue from 304 people in the population-based Vantaa 85+ study of the oldest old. They looked for age-related tau astrogliopathy: abnormal changes involving tau, a brain protein, in astrocytes, cells that support other brain cells. They used an antibody stain to assess these changes across multiple brain regions.
The changes were present in 79.6% of individuals. Different subtypes were associated with male sex. Subtypes were also linked to several other brain abnormalities, including other protein-related changes and blood-vessel disease. These included small brain infarcts—areas of tissue death caused by a loss of blood supply.
Why it matters
Mapping overlapping brain abnormalities may help clarify the significance of changes in brain-support cells in very old age.
Caveats
The observational findings cannot show whether one brain abnormality caused another. Results from this oldest-old population do not establish how common these changes are at younger ages.
The paper
Ageing-related tau astrogliopathy in a population-based study of the oldest old (Vantaa 85+)
University of Helsinki
Neurobiology of Disease, Jul 27, 2026, Open access
Presented at AAIC 2025 as an abstract
