Researchers find brain activity that could help predict Alzheimer's nine years before symptoms show

• A subtle change in a memory-making brain region seems to predict who will get Alzheimer's disease nine years before symptoms appear, scientists reported Sunday.
• The finding is part of a wave of research aimed at early detection of the deadly dementia, and one day perhaps even preventing it.
• Researchers scanned the brains of middle-aged and older people while they were still healthy.
• They discovered that lower energy usage in a part of the brain called the hippocampus correctly signaled who would get Alzheimer's or a related memory impairment 85 percent of the time.
• Still, the discovery may provide leads to scientists searching for therapies to at least delay the onset of the degenerative brain disease.
• "It's exciting that we can even talk about prevention," said William Thies, scientific director of the Alzheimer's Association.
• It is not clear if the men in the study became less social because Alzheimer's already was at work, but social activity is mentally stimulating.
• A brain-healthy lifestyle aside, a big quest is to develop ways to identify Alzheimer's disease before symptoms emerge - finding biomarkers that could be targets for preventive therapies.
• He measured blood levels of different types of beta amyloid, the sticky protein that makes up Alzheimer's hallmark brain plaques, in 565 people.
• PET scans already can show Alzheimer's plaques in advanced disease.
• The researchers found that the hippocampus was not as active as in people without that familial risk.
• To prove if these early indicators are real, the National Institute on Aging, with financial help from the pharmaceutical industry and Alzheimer's Association, is beginning a $60 million study to scan the brains of 800 older Americans and try to pin down Alzheimer's earliest biological changes.