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Alzheimer's, Dementia & Mental Health
Are We Ready for 60 Second Test that Determines if
We Have Alzheimer’s?
Current early diagnosis is based on study of
patient’s behavior
 Aug. 22, 2007 – Are we ready for this? Do we really
want to know? Engineers say we could soon be able to diagnose the onset
of many brain diseases, like Alzheimer’s, with a quick analysis of the
tiny magnetic fields produced by neuron activity in the brain.
Physicians today have to rely on time-consuming and
uncertain examinations of behavior to make a diagnosis of the onset of
brain disease such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia.
But research to be published next week in the
Institute of Physics' Journal of Neural Engineering suggests that we
could soon be able to diagnose the onset of many brain diseases from
tiny magnetic charges.
This is a significant breakthrough for neurologists
and psychiatrists as it could present a fast and simple screening test
for brain diseases, while also helping differentiate between different
brain diseases that have similar symptoms.
A team of investigators from the University of
Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, led by Professor Apostolos P.
Georgopoulos, has been analysing the magnetic charges released when
neuronal populations in our brains 'couple'.
By comparing the patterns of tiny magnetic charges
in healthy brains to those afflicted with common diseases such as
Alzheimer's, the team has been able to identify the patterns commonly
associated with these debilitating diseases.
A process called magnetoencephalography (MEG), a
non-invasive measurement of magnetic fields in the brain, has been used
to examine a total of 142 volunteers during tests which last between
45-60 seconds.
The team first studied 52 volunteers to find
patterns of neural activity that could identify all the different
illnesses. They then tested a further 46 patients to see whether the
patterns found from the first group could accurately diagnose disease
within a second group.
Here, many of the predictors found from the first
set of participants also correctly diagnosed more than 90% of subjects
in the second sample.
Professor Georgopoulos said, "We want to continue
and acquire data from a large number of subjects - patients and matched
controls. The throughput of this MEG test is large so we can continue a
high rate of testing and we hope that clinical applications can become a
reality in a year or two."
Diagnosing illnesses like Alzheimer's has always
been very difficult, particularly in the early stages. Physicians are
forced to rely on conversations with patients, memory tests, physical
examinations and, occasionally, brain scans. It is sometimes not until
post-mortem or after a biopsy that cause of illness can be confirmed.
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