Neuroimaging and Biomarkers: How Early Can We Diagnose Alzheimer's?

Neuroimaging and Biomarkers: How Early Can We Diagnose Alzheimer's?

Air date: Wednesday, May 08, 2013, 3:00:00 PM

Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series

Robert N. Butler Lecture

As the field of aging and dementia moves toward the early identification of the underlying disease processes involved in cognitive impairment, the development of subtle clinical indices and biomarkers becomes necessary. From a clinical perspective, the early detection of subtle cognitive impairment has moved from early dementia to mild cognitive impairment and eventually to a cognitively "normal" state at which time there are subtle pre-clinical signals of Alzheimer's disease. From a biomarker perspective, a model of the underlying putative pathophysiology in Alzheimer's disease has been widely adopted and is now being validated. The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) is a large public-private partnership that has led the field in the validation of biomarkers in the setting of randomized controlled trials. In addition to the ADNI validation of clinical constructs and biomarkers, their utility needs to be demonstrated in the general community. The Mayo Clinic Study of Aging is a population-based random sample of 3000-4000 subjects in Olmsted County, Minnesota, ages 50 to 89 years and is designed to characterize the trajectory of non-demented subjects longitudinally and evaluate biomarkers such as MRI, FDG PET, amyloid PET, and cerebrospinal fluid in this setting. Longitudinal data from this study have indicated that the underlying biological process for Alzheimer's disease begins ten to 15 years prior to symptom onset, and this can now be detected using biomarkers, but the community data also reveal combinations of markers that were not anticipated by the Alzheimer's disease model. Therefore, the application of these models to the community is essential. The role of these data in validating the new National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer's Association criteria for Alzheimer's disease will be discussed.

Author: Ronald C. Petersen, Ph.D., M.D. Mayo Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Mayo Clinic College of Medicine

Runtime: 01:00:15

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