Early Alzheimer’s Prediction using Brain Scan Technology

Exciting new research from a team of researchers at Birmingham City University (UK), in association with colleagues from Lanzhou University (China) and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, has shown that Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) could be predicted years earlier than previous diagnostic methods have detected.

The researchers conducted a brain scan analysis over two years, of patients suffering from amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) – a condition involving the diminishing of cognitive abilities, from which 80% of patients progress to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.

Scans showed that the loss of grey matter and cortical thickness differences in the left hemisphere of the brain in these patients when compared to a control group was particularly widespread and degenerative after the two year period.

The cerebral cortex of the brain has been associated with language, decision making, expressing personality, executing movement, planning complex cognitive behaviour and moderating social behaviour.

Professor Mike Jackson, from Birmingham City University, told SelectScience, “It’s a very left brain thing! There is a strong correlation between the left brain and Alzheimer’s symptoms. Continuous loss of the cells (atrophy) within these cerebral regions could act as a clinical predictor, as they may indicate that the patient is on course to developing Alzheimer’s.”

When asked how this method could be developed further to aid the diagnosis and development of therapeutics Professor Mike Jackson answered, “Using greater sample sizes from available scan data or live patients a diagnostic computational method could be developed. The method will need to scan as many parameters as possible using a varying number of samples”.

He mentioned one particular brain area of interest, the parahippocampal gyrus, which should be analysed and reviewed very carefully using different sets of parameters in the scans. This area is known to be related to memory encoding and retrieval.

In conclusion this research indicates a need for greater analysis of the cerebral regions of the brain in specific disorders such as aMCI. Further understanding of the pathology of such diseases may lead to effective therapies to delay the conversion from aMCI to AD.