Three-fourths of patients with Alzheimer’s disease or frontal-lobe degeneration had MRI-detected biomarker levels that correlated with the diagnoses, suggesting MRI has potential as a screening tool for the conditions, investigators reported.
MRI-predicted values for total tau and β-amyloid ratio (tt/Aβ) in gray matter correctly pinpointed the diagnosis in 75% of patients with genetically or neuropathologically confirmed diagnoses, according to Corey McMillan, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues. Predicted values also had good correlation with actual tt/Aβ measured in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), they said.
The findings are consistent with previous in vivo and autopsy studies of CSF tt/Aβ, the group reported in the Jan. 8 issue of Neurology.
For the very first times, surgeons at Johns Hopkins have used a brain-implanted pacemaker device to try to slow memory loss in a patient suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s. So far there’s only one patient with a memory-saving zapper, but a second is on the way along with about 40 others over the course of the next year, with the help of several other research institutes. After implantation, the pacemakers zap a part of the brain called the fornix with up to 130 blasts of electricity per second, all without disturbing the brain’s owner.
A mutation found in about one in 200 Icelanders older than 85 raised the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease threefold, researchers said.