Researchers at the Penn School of Medicine have discovered two ways to detect the changes indicative of Alzheimer's disease onset before symptoms are apparent.
The studies - presented this week at a conference in Chicago - may lead to the development of more advanced Alxheimer's treatment.
In the first study, researchers used MRI imaging to locate the specific structural changes that occur during Alzheimers.
The study found that deterioration in the brain increased with age and that an increase in changes in brain structure led to a decrease in cognitive performance. In addition, some individuals with no apparent symptoms of the disease had significant brain deterioration that may have indicated the early stages of the disease.
In the second study, professor of pathology and lab medicine and director of the Penn Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative Biomarker Core Laboratory Leslie Shaw and colleagues examined concentrations chemicals in the cerebral spinal fluid to find the exact levels of three protein biomarkers associated with Alzheimer's. The results showed significant differences in the concentrations of these biomarkers.
"By defining significant differences in biomarkers, we are able to accelerate our drug development efforts to look for compounds that modify these discrepancies," Shaw said in a press release, "and may treat Alzheimer's disease."
