A Tipping Point for Amyloid Accumulation in the Development of Alzheimer ' s Disease

Researchers here report on their view of amyloid accumulation in the brains of older people, as established by PET scans. They suggest that there is a tipping point after which further accumulation and the consequent development of Alzheimer's disease becomes predictable. It is interesting to consider what is going on under the hood to produce this behavior. Most aspects of age-related disease involve mutual interactions between different processes of damage and dysfunction, leading to feedback loops that change behavior at different stages of disease progression. In a system in which there is some capacity for maintenance, there may well be thresholds of damage and dysfunction after which maintenance cannot keep up, and pathology develops more rapidly as a result. In those who eventually develop Alzheimer's dementia, amyloid silently builds up in the brain for up to two decades before the first signs of confusion and forgetfulness appear. Amyloid PET scans already are used widely in Alzheimer's research, and now an algorithm developed by researchers represents a new way of analyzing such scans to approximate when symptoms will arise. Using a person's age and data from a single amyloid PET scan, the algorithm yields an estimate of how far a person has progressed toward dementia - and how much time is left before cognitive impairment sets in. Researchers analyzed amyloid PET scans from 236 people participating in Alzheimer's research studies. The participants w...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs