A very small area in the brain can help to detect Alzheimer’s disease at a very early stage, researchers from Maastricht University have discovered.
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This minuscule so-called blue core is hidden deep in the brain stem and can only be visualized with advanced MRI equipment.
According to researcher Heidi Jacobs, a certain harmful protein starts to spread in that spot. This sometimes happens 30 years before the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s are visible.
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Scientists have suspected for some time that this protein, called tau, plays a decisive role in the development of the brain disease. Tau forms harmful protein tangles in the brain cells of people with Alzheimer’s. Jacobs’s study now shows for the first time that this is associated with changes in the blue core of the brain. “We have been able to examine this core for the first time with new, ultra-powerful MRI scanners,” said the researcher.
healthier lifestyle
Nearly 300,000 people currently live with dementia in the Netherlands. This number is expected to explode in the coming years to more than half a million by 2040. There is not yet a medicine that cures dementia. “But if an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s is detected at a very early stage, a healthier lifestyle could reduce the risk of dementia again,” says Jacobs.
The research has been published in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine.
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