Originally published July 12 2005
Study of brain scan technique finds it may help predict Alzheimer's disease
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Foodconsumer.org is reporting that a study by New York University School of Medicine found HipMask, a brain scan-based computer program, may be able to predict Alzheimer's disease later in life by measuring the reduction in brain metabolism in a healthy adult.
Alzheimer's disease can be predicted simply by measuring metabolic activity in the hippocampus using a brain scan based computer program called HipMask, according to a study appearing in the June 2005 issue of the journal Neurology.
Using the program, researchers at New York University School of Medicine demonstrated that reductions of brain metabolism in healthy individuals were associated with the development of Alzheimer's disease in their later life.
Dr. Mosconi presented the new findings on June 20 at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Prevention of Dementia held in Washington.
The computer program, an image analysis technique, was developed to allow researchers to standardize and automate the sampling of PET brain scans.
Previous studies by Dr. Mony de Leon and colleagues demonstrated with CT and later with MRI scans that the hippocampus diminishes in size as Alzheimer's disease progresses from mild cognitive impairment to full-blown dementia.
Based on these previous studies by Dr. Leon, the researchers of the current study developed the computer program HipMask that could accurately and quickly measure the hippocampal area of the brain on a PET scan.
All subjects received two FDG-PET scans �- one at baseline and a follow-up after 3 years.
The results showed that compared with controls, hippocampal glucose metabolism dropped by 15% to 40% on the first follow-up PET scan in 25 individuals who would later experience cognitive decline related to either mild cognitive impairment or to Alzheimer's.
The researchers also found that the baseline hippocampal glucose metabolism was the only measure that predicted the future cognitive decline.
"Right now, we can show with great accuracy who will develop Alzheimer's nine years in advance of symptoms, and our projections suggest we might be able to take that out as far as 15 years," says Dr. Leon, whose longitudinal study is funded by the National Institutes of Health.
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