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MRI May Detect Early Alzheimer's Disease

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Functional MRI, or fMRI, can spot an abnormality in brain function that may help identify people in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An imaging technique called functional MRI, or fMRI, can spot an abnormality in brain function that may help identify people in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new report.

"A number of previous fMRI studies in memory impairment have focused on brain areas that are more active while trying to remember something, such as the temporal lobe," Dr. Jeffrey R. Petrella told Reuters Health. "Our study focused on this as well as on other brain structures, including those areas that become less active while trying to remember something."

Petrella, a radiologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, said his team was surprised by their findings because they had expected the enhanced-activity areas would best show the severity of memory difficulties. "Ironically, the suppressed areas turned out to be a better marker of memory problems."

In their study, reported in the medical journal Radiology, 13 patients with mild Alzheimer's disease, 34 with mild mental impairment involving forgetfulness, and 28 healthy elderly "control" subjects were evaluated with fMRI while they performed various mental tasks.

While impaired activation in the temporal lobe was associated with cognitive impairment, as expected, impaired deactivation in another area toward the rear of the brain was linked even more strongly to mental difficulties.

"As new therapies for Alzheimer's disease enter the pipeline over the next five years, early diagnosis will become critical," Petrella said. "Functional MRI may in the future play a key role in early diagnosis when combined with clinical, genetic and other imaging markers."

SOURCE: Radiology, October 2007.

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