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Generalizing Amyloid β Pathology from Postmortem Human Brains with Vision Foundation Models for Lesion Quantification
Chen Y, Boon BD, Engelberg-Cook E, Zhu L, Rothberg D, Rozemuller A, Grinberg LT, Ushizima D.. medRxiv, 2026-10-07
Topic: Plasma and spinal-fluid biomarkers
The ViTamyloid classifier achieved strong feature-separation metrics, yielding area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) and precision-recall curve (AUPRC) values of 0.994/0.958 for CCP, 0.989/0.945 for CGP, 0.992/0.977 for CAA Type 1, and 0.997/0.978 for CAA Type 2. More importantly, ViTamyloid consistently outperforms other pipelines' models and frozen features in all external datasets with different antibodies, and scanner settings, and image quality. By replacing empirical, from-scratch architectures with a generalizable foundation model adapter framework, ViTamyloid provides a highly sensitive scalable digital pathomics toolkit. This pipeline expose continuous microscopic neuropathological dynamics beyond the spatial and sensitivity plateaus of in vivo neuroimaging, offering objective, quantitative endpoints for Alzheimer's disease clinical trials and disease subtyping.
Key findings
- The ViTamyloid classifier achieved strong feature-separation metrics, yielding area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) and precision-recall curve (AUPRC) values of 0.994/0.958 for CCP, 0.989/0.945 for CGP, 0.992/0.977 for CAA Type 1, and 0.997/0.978 for CAA Type 2.
- More importantly, ViTamyloid consistently outperforms other pipelines' models and frozen features in all external datasets with different antibodies, and scanner settings, and image quality.
- By replacing empirical, from-scratch architectures with a generalizable foundation model adapter framework, ViTamyloid provides a highly sensitive scalable digital pathomics toolkit.
- This pipeline expose continuous microscopic neuropathological dynamics beyond the spatial and sensitivity plateaus of in vivo neuroimaging, offering objective, quantitative endpoints for Alzheimer's disease clinical trials and disease subtyping.
Study details
- Study designlongitudinal study
- Evidence strengthModerate
How this study scored 16/100
Preprint — not yet peer-reviewed. It scored 35 on the same rubric, but non-peer-reviewed sources are capped at 16, so it shows as 16. Scored zero for sample size, effect reported, studied in people and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it. We have no data on times cited, citations per year, impact for its field and year, cited by studies here, still being cited, senior author's track record, institution's track record and multi-centre collaboration, so those were left out: it earned 22 of the 62 points we could judge it on, which is 35 out of 100.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 2 / 10 | Tier 4 — not a peer-reviewed journal (medRxiv) |
| Journal's citation record | 0 / 4 | Not a journal article, so the journal's record does not count |
| Study design | 7 / 12 | A longitudinal study following the same people over time |
| Strength of evidence | 3 / 5 | Rated “moderate” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 4 / 10 | Preprint — not yet peer-reviewed. Hosted on a preprint server. |
| How recent | 5 / 5 | 2026 — within 1 year(s) of the newest study here |
| Sample size | 0 / 4 | Participant count not stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Effect reported | 0 / 3 | No effect size reported — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Studied in people | 0 / 3 | Not stated whether this was studied in people — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Randomised / blinded | 0 / 2 | No randomisation or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Times cited | — / 7 | No citation count (not found in OpenAlex) — left out of this score |
| Citations per year | — / 5 | No citation count or no year — left out of this score |
| Impact for its field and year | — / 6 | No field-weighted citation impact (OpenAlex has none yet) — left out of this score |
| Cited by studies here | — / 6 | Not yet checked against this library's citation graph — left out of this score |
| Still being cited | — / 4 | No yearly citation counts — left out of this score |
| Senior author's track record | — / 4 | Senior author's record not available — left out of this score |
| Institution's track record | — / 3 | No institution listed in OpenAlex — left out of this score |
| Multi-centre collaboration | — / 3 | Institutions not listed — left out of this score |
| Indexed in PubMed | 1 / 2 | Not in PubMed, but has a DOI |
| Free to read | 0 / 2 | Behind a paywall — scores zero |
| Points | 22 / 62 | Scored on 12 of 20 parts. We have no data for the rest, so they are left out: 22 of the 62 points we could judge it on is 35 out of 100. |
| Total | 35 / 100 | Capped to 16 because this is not a peer-reviewed article. |
What each of these 20 components measures, and what this score is not →
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Cite this study APA, Vancouver, BibTeX · download .bib or .ris
Built from the record alzhub holds for this paper, not looked up. Volume, issue and page numbers are not held in the record. The record names 8 authors; APA and Vancouver show the first six, BibTeX and the downloads carry all of them. Check the citation against the original before you use it.
APA 7th
Chen, Y., Boon, B. D., Engelberg-Cook, E., Zhu, L., Rothberg, D., Rozemuller, A., et al. (2026). Generalizing Amyloid β Pathology from Postmortem Human Brains with Vision Foundation Models for Lesion Quantification. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.10.05.26364184
Vancouver
Chen Y, Boon BD, Engelberg-Cook E, Zhu L, Rothberg D, Rozemuller A, et al. Generalizing Amyloid β Pathology from Postmortem Human Brains with Vision Foundation Models for Lesion Quantification. medRxiv. 2026. doi:10.64898/2026.10.05.26364184.
BibTeX
@article{chen2026-e5794f8d,
author = {Chen, Y. and Boon, B. D. and Engelberg-Cook, E. and Zhu, L. and Rothberg, D. and Rozemuller, A. and Grinberg, L. T. and Ushizima, D.},
title = {{Generalizing Amyloid β Pathology from Postmortem Human Brains with Vision Foundation Models for Lesion Quantification}},
journal = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.05.26364184},
url = {https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.10.05.26364184}
}