An American research team has successfully demonstrated a probe that uses MRI testing that could find Alzheimer’s disease in an early stage, which could lead to an effective treatment.
The new test involved the development of a new probe that is used in conjunction with MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) testing to identify amyloid beta toxin oligomers in the brain, which are early indicators of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers using the probe were able to identify the toxins as dark areas on the MRI brain scans.
This new test differs from others used for Alzheimer’s disease. Current testing can show amyloid plaques on the brain of Alzheimer’s patients, but these show up later in the course of the disease. The hope is that detecting the toxins before they form plaques could lead to finding new effective treatments before brain damage occurs.
"We expect to use this tool to detect this disease early and to help identify drugs that can effectively eliminate the toxin and improve health,” said Dr. William L. Klein, who co-led the research team at Northwestern University, which developed the new test. He is the scientist who first identified amyloid beta brain toxin oligomers in 1998.
No effective drugs yet exist for Alzheimer's disease, and scientists believe that this is partly due to the inability to detect it before symptoms appear.
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