First Technique for Imaging Alzheimer's

(pinpoint the specific form of dementia)

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Researchers speculate that the ability to detect and monitor Alzheimer's disease (AD) as it unfolds would speed diagnosis and aid in intervention. It would also enable the use of new therapies for the disorder, which is estimated to afflict 10% of people older than 65. Now, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have combined use of a new chemical marker called FDDNP with positron emission tomography (PET) to see for the first time the brain lesions indicative of AD in living patients.

According to principal investigator Jorge R. Barrio, MD, UCLA professor of medical and molecular pharmacology, "We have developed the first tracer molecule that visually zeroes in on the brain lesions caused by Alzheimer's disease." Coinvestigator Gary Small, Parlow-Solomon Professor of Aging and UCLA professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, explains that the "noninvasive method will help us monitor new vaccines and drugs designed to prevent and treat the brain damage caused by Alzheimer's disease."

Using PET, Barrio and Small detected high concentrations of FDDNP in the memory centers of nine Alzheimer's patients' brains. To verify their findings, they performed a brain autopsy after one of the patients died. The postmortem tissue revealed that FDDNP-stained lesions were present in the brain's memory centers, thus confirming the results of the patient's PET scan.

Barrio and Small also discovered that PET scans of patients injected with FDDNP showed the presence of early brain lesions, before the plaques are believed to destroy brain cells. The researchers believe that if current hypotheses about the role of lesions in the disease process prove accurate, the technique may be capable of identifying when medical intervention can delay or prevent the onset of the disease. Read more: mddionline.com

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