Columbia University Medical Center researchers, through the use of high-resolution functional MRI (fMRI) imaging in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and in mouse models of the disease,  have clarified three fundamental issues about Alzheimer’s: where it starts, why it starts there and how it spreads. In addition to advancing understanding of Alzheimer’s, the findings could improve early detection of the disease, as well as when drugs may be most effective. The study was published in the online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience on Dec. 22, 2013.

“…this study is the first to show in living patients that it begins specifically in the lateral entorhinal cortex, or LEC,” said co-senior author Scott A. Small, MD. “The LEC is considered to be a gateway to the hippocampus, which plays a key role in the consolidation of long-term memory, among other functions. If the LEC is affected, other aspects of the hippocampus will also be affected.” To read more about the findings from the researchers, please click here.