In fact, our analyses indicate that TREM2 carriers have a unique cellular brain composition distinct than the other AD cases. TREM2 brains showed significantly higher relative neuronal proportion (β = 0.05; p = 1.98 × 10−02) and significantly lower relative astrocyte proportion than the AD non-carries (β = − 0.05; p = 1.58 × 10−02; Table 4). The distribution of CDR, mean number of amyloid plaques, and Braak staging do not differ between strata. Nonetheless, we verified that the cellular proportions were still significantly different after correcting for each of those variables (Table 4). These results suggested that the mechanism that lead to disease in TREM2 carriers is less neuron-centric than in the general AD population.
