Brain Imaging (MRI/PET) and Measurements of Proteins in Spinal Fluid May Improve Alzheimer's Prediction and...(pus (HIP) a region of the brain that is ...),Health

Date:7/14/2009

pus (HIP), a region of the brain that is critical to the formation of new memories. However, according to the researchers, HIP rCMglc cannot be accurately and practically sampled in broad populations using conventional techniques. This is because the hippocampus has an irregular shape and undergoes varying degrees of shrinkage during aging and when affected by disease, such as Alzheimer's. Conventional analysis techniques rely on the ability to align images of each patient's brain to a template brain map, and there is loss of sensitivity and precision due to the difficulty of aligning this irregular shape.

Lisa Mosconi, PhD, and colleagues in the Center for Brain Health at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine, directed by Mony de Leon, PhD, developed and tested an automated method that achieves accurate, rapid sampling of many brain regions, including the hippocampus. Matthews and her team collaborated with NYU to apply the automated method to 250 subjects from the ADNI database (78 female/172 male, age 59-88; 79 healthy, 111 MCI, 60 Alzheimer's). Using the automated approach, rCMglc was measured by PET in 32 brain regions. Participants were divided into seven subgroups across normal, MCI, and AD categories, based upon their initial diagnosis and results of subsequent memory and thinking tests up to 3 years after the scan.

The researchers observed a significant correlation between rCMglc in several brain regions and the progression from "stable normal" to "normal with subsequent clinical decline", to subcategories of MCI and Alzheimer's. They also found that HIP rCMglc was a sensitive predictor of decline and discriminator between disease stages. As compared to people considered "stable normal," HIP rCMglc was reduced by 5% in "normal with subsequent clinical decline", 12% in "stable MCI," 14% in "MCI with subsequent clinical decline" (p<0.05), and 24% in Alzheimer's (p<0.001).

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SOURCE Alzheimer's Association Copyright©2009 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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