A maternal link to Alzheimer's disease(ears old who underwent a battery of neu...),Health

Date:11/6/2007

ears old, who underwent a battery of neuropsychological and clinical tests, and PET (positron emission tomography) scans of their brains using a technique that labels glucosethe brains fuelwith a special chemical tracer. Sixteen subjects had a mother with the disease, and eight had a father with Alzheimers. The remaining subjects didnt have a family history of the disease.

People with a maternal history of the disease had the largest reductions in glucose metabolism in several areas of the brain, including the medial temporal lobes and the posterior cingulate cortex, two brain regions involved with memory storage and retrieval. Brain energy metabolism was reduced by 25 percent in the posterior cingulate cortex in this group

There werent any reductions in brain energy metabolism in the people without a family history and in those with a father who had the disease. The effects in glucose metabolism among subjects with a maternal history remained significant after accounting for possible risk factors for Alzheimers, including age, gender, education, Apolipoprotein E genotype, and subjective memory complaints.

This is a preliminary study and the results have to be replicated, says Dr. Mosconi. What we need even more is to follow subjects over time until they develop clinical symptoms, and we really need to assess whether the metabolic reductions predict and correlate with disease progression, she says.

Energy metabolism hasnt been a major focus of research in Alzheimers, so we hope that this study will stimulate further discussion on brain activity and disease risk, which could also be important for planning targeted therapeutic interventions, says Dr. Mosconi.

This is an intriguing finding, says Mony de Leon, Ed.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Brain Health at NYU School of Medicine. It points to the need for more research to investigate the mechanisms of maternal transmission of this o
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Contact: Pamela McDonnell Pamela.McDonnell@nyumc.org 212-404-3555 New York University Medical Center and School of Medicine Source:Eurekalert

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