Originally published February 7 2006
Reduction in brain's volume often precedes the development of dementia, study says
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Archives of General Psychiatry has published a study of dementia that claims atrophied brains, particularly when the volume of the amygdala or hippocampus has been decreased, often precede the onset of dementia in adults.
A new study published in the JAMA journal Archives of General Psychiatry has found that reduced volume or atrophy, in parts of the brain called the amygdala and hippocampus, may help predict dementia in cognitively healthy elderly people over a six-year period.
The study states new strategies may be able to prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia among older adults.
Accurate methods of identifying people at high risk for dementia in old age will help physicians determine who could benefit from these interventions.
The researchers used MRI to assess the brain volumes of 511 dementia-free elderly people who were part of the Rotterdam Study, a large population-based cohort study that began in 1990.
They screened the participants for dementia at initial visits in 1995 and 1996 and then in follow-up visits between 1997 and 2003, during which they asked about memory problems and performed extensive neuropsychological testing.
The authors also monitored the medical records of all participants.
People with severe amygdalar or hippocampal atrophy had the highest risk of developing dementia or AD over the course of the study, which followed participants for an average period of six years.
"Concerning the extent of atrophy, we found in those destined to develop dementia volume reductions between 17 percent and 5 percent, depending on how long before the diagnosis of dementia the MRI was conducted.
In persons with mild to moderate AD, volume reductions compared with healthy elderly persons are between 25 percent and 40 percent," said the researchers.
"Our study suggests that structural brain imaging can help identify people at high risk for developing dementia, even before they have any memory complaints or measurable cognitive impairment," they said.
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