Plaques Detected in Brain Scans Forecast Cognitive Impairment

According to a 36-month study, brain imaging using radioactive dye can detect early evidence of Alzheimer’s disease that may predict future cognitive decline among adults with mild or no cognitive impairment. The current study, led by Duke Medicine, was designed to assess whether silent pathological changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s and detected with positron emission tomography (PET) can predict cognitive decline. The study’s findings, recently published online in Molecular Psychiatry, suggest that identifying silent beta-amyloid plaque build-up in the brain could help guide care and treatment decisions for patients at risk for Alzheimer’s. The radioactive dye used, florbetapir (Amyvid), binds to the beta-amyloid plaques that characterize Alzheimer’s disease, helping to measure the extent to which plaques have formed in different brain regions. Subjects completed cognitive tests and underwent PET scans of their brains; 36 months later, the researchers repeated the same cognitive exams. “Our research found that healthy adults and those with mild memory loss who have a positive scan for these plaques have a much faster rate of decline on memory, language and reasoning over three years,” said lead author P. Murali Doraiswamy, MD. To read more about this study, click here.