Early Stage Alzheimer's Detected by New MRI Method

Alzheimer's disease can be identified much before you see the usual symptoms, says a team of research scientists in a Northwestern University team of scientists and engineers.

The team has invented a noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging device, which coupled a magnetic nanostructure (MNS) with an "antibody that seeks out the amyloid beta brain toxins", going on to the beginning of Alzheimer's disease, according to dnaindia.com.

The MRI scans of the brain can detect the toxins that have gathered as dark areas, due to the associated magnetic nanostructures. A new brain imaging method to identify the toxin leading to Alzheimer's disease is available now, according to neuroscientist William L Klein, leader of the research team, along with materials scientist Vinayak P Dravid.

With MRI, the toxins attached to the brain's neurons can be identified. The tool can detect the disease early, as well as the drugs that can remove toxins and improve health.

Toxic amyloid beta oligomers instead of plaques are being identified by the new MRI probe technology, which is different from what the traditional device technology found, which occured at a stage of Alzheimer's when therapeutic intervention came very late. Amyloid beta oligomers are the indicators for the onset of Alzheimer's disease and proceeding memory loss.

In a brain that is diseased, mobile amyloid beta oligomers assault synapses of neurons, which impacts memory and leads to the death of neurons. With the passing of time, the amyloid beta begins to build up and stick together, thus leading to the creation of amyloid plaques. However, oligomers are the early intruders, even one decade earlier than the plaques.

"Non-invasive imaging by MRI of amyloid beta oligomers is a giant step forward towards diagnosis of this debilitating disease in its earliest form," said Dravid, the Abraham Harris Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. "This MRI method could be used to determine how well a new drug is working. If a drug is effective, you would expect the amyloid beta signal to go down," Dravid said.

The nontoxic MRI probe was administered through the nose to many mice---some who had Alzheimer's disease and some control animals who did not. The first group showed the toxins in the hippocampus during the MRI scans. But the control group showed no dark areas.

The study was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.