Sex-divergent trajectories of hippocampal and cortical NMDA receptor density across the Alzheimer 's disease continuum

The study used quantitative in vitro autoradiography on postmortem brain tissue to measure NMDA receptor and tau radioligand binding in the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and parietal cortex. It found that the relationship between regional NMDA receptor density and cognitive status, as assessed by the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE), differs between males and females across the Alzheimer's disease spectrum. These sex-divergent trajectories suggest that receptor loss may not follow a uniform pattern, which could affect how biomarker data are interpreted in mixed-sex cohorts. The authors highlight the need to incorporate sex as a biological variable in future neuroimaging and therapeutic studies targeting the glutamatergic system in AD.