Brain activity clue to Alzheimer’s

We all have a little trouble kick-starting our brains every now and again, but mild cognitive impairment could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s. Scientists from the University of Manchester believe measurements of brain activity could predict Alzheimer’s disease in people with mild memory problems and hope their study could help improve clinical trials to find new treatments for the disease.

“Our findings show measuring brain activity could be a better way of detecting Alzheimer’s in its earliest stages, and we hope this method could boost the search for new treatments to delay or prevent the disease,” said Karl Herholz, professor of clinical neuroscience.

People with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) experience problems with thinking and memory, but not to the extent that interferes with daily life. Many – but not all – go on to develop Alzheimer’s and being able to predict who will develop the disease is key.

Researchers analysed the results of cognitive tests and PET scans of 44 healthy volunteers, plus 40 people with Alzheimer’s and 94 with MCI. People with MCI who went on to develop Alzheimer’s showed greater impairment in their early PET scans than those who didn’t.

The PET scans – which measure glucose metabolism, a marker of brain activity – were also better for predicting who might develop Alzheimer’s than cognitive tests, and could detect changes in brain function over a shorter time period.

“PET scans are increasingly being used in clinical trials of new drugs, and we expect this will eventually lead to shorter trials and faster progress,” said Herholz. “Dementia can only be defeated through research, and I hope our study will bring us close to reaching that goal.”

The research – published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine – was part funded by Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI).

“These exciting findings could give us a reliable way to predict Alzheimer’s disease, which is crucial for allowing potential new drugs to be tested in the earliest stages of the disease,” said Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK.

“With 820,000 people affected by dementia in the UK today, the need for research has never been more urgent.”