Scientist Find Genetic Clue In Early Detection Of Dementia
Researchers have discovered that brain activity changes in young adulthood may serve as a reliable warning sign for developing dementia in the future.
Scientists from the University of Oxford and Imperial College London used brain imaging to find clues as to why certain people develop Alzheimer’s Disease.
Previous studies have shown that the gene called ApoE4 increased the risk of Alzheimer’s in patients, but researchers in the new study found that the mutation also accounted for heightened activity in the hippocampus in people as young as 20.
Carrying one copy of the rogue ApoE4 gene raises the risk of Alzheimer’s by up to four times the normal, two copies by up to 10 times.
Researchers suggest that this increased activity in the hippocampus of healthy young adults could eventually wear out the brain’s memory capability, they wrote in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Researchers hope their findings may present a new reliable method of early testing to identify people at increased risk of developing dementia.
Those patients found to be at an increased risk would have the advantage of receiving early treatment and lifestyle advice.
Researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study the brain activity of 36 volunteers between the ages of 20 and 35. They found18 carried at least one copy of the ApoE4 gene.
The researchers looked at how the volunteers’ brains behaved while they were resting and also while they were performing a memory-related task.
Scientists witnessed heightened activity in the hippocampus, even when volunteers were resting.
"We have shown that brain activity is different in people with this version of the gene decades before any memory problems might develop,” said Dr Clare Mackay, the lead author of the study from the Department of Psychiatry and the Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain at the University of Oxford.
“We’ve also shown that this form of fMRI, where people just lie in the scanner doing nothing, is sensitive enough to pick up these changes. These are exciting first steps towards a tantalizing prospect: a simple test that will be able to distinguish who will go on to develop Alzheimer’s."
The researchers will now carry out a similar study of patients with mild cognitive impairment to explore how these differences in patterns of brain activity in young people may be associated with later changes.
Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common cause of dementia, and it affects some 417,000 people in the UK, researchers noted.
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